Moral Bravery and Whistleblowing
Moral bravery is the desire to do the right thing regardless of the repercussions that might follow. Whistleblowers must choose between remaining anonymous to secure their careers, which are critical to their livelihoods, and disclosing the illegality they find in their workplaces. In the case of WorldCom, three internal auditors who had been with the firm for many years, including Ms. Cooper, who oversaw the auditors and had been with the organization for almost a decade, uncovered the serious accounting fraud amounting to billions of dollars. Susan Pulliam and Deborah Solomon identified the three as "principled people" in a Wall Street Journal post. Being senior employees of the company, the three knew the effects of disclosing the fraud to the authorities, yet they chose to uphold moral values. By revealing one of the most massive accounting fraud in corporate history, they sent their employer into bankruptcy, leading to loss of jobs for their colleagues and leaving investors counting losses too.
Moral Courage and Overcoming Obstacles
Moral courage involves overcoming all the obstacles that may arise in the quest of revealing the truth. Most individuals who discover cases of fraud are threatened to silence and at times paid off. People have eroded their morals and chosen to compromise ethics and professionalism for the sake of short-term gains leading to rot in some enterprises and the society in general. For example, an auditor's job is to certify whether the information found in a company's accounting books reflect the correct and fair position of the company and report on the findings. By revealing the fraud in WorldCom, the three auditors remained true to their profession. While most individuals view whistleblowers as traitors, they are heroes who have the moral courage to help have a better society in future irrespective of the cost.
