As we grow older, experience bends and reshapes the things we believe. Sometimes we see the reshaping and are consciously aware of where it takes us. Sometimes we only realise long after the fact that the bending happened. I have a long list of items that have been bent and reshaped in my consciousness. I am pretty sure that some of them are not yet in my conscious mind. I was recently reminded of one of my reshaped opinions when I was asked to speak at the University of Johannesburg’s annual Corruption Summit.
There was a time in my career when a younger version of me stood before professionals and told them that they must do the right thing—even when they had to stand alone. I said it with conviction, because it was the right thing to say. But, with more life experience under my belt, I now understand that I had a too narrow view back then. I still believe that doing the right thing matters and that there are moments when conscience demands courage, even when others remain silent. I have, however, become less comfortable with the ease with which we deliver this instruction.
“Do the right thing” sounds noble when spoken from a stage, written into a code of ethics, or included in leadership training. It sounds much less straightforward when doing the right thing could cost someone their livelihood, professional reputation, relationships, health, or sense of safety. It is too easy for us to see it in non-linear and abstract terms that take the complexities completely out of focus. So, over time, I have come to recognise that my earlier message, although well-intentioned, was honestly incomplete. I had to evolve my thinking and reshape how I delivered that message.
Before we treat speaking up primarily as a test of individual courage, we need to understand the context, the price to be paid, and the degree to which failure lies in insufficient attention given to the organisational conditions that determine what happens to people who do. Cowardice is not always the appropriate label for silence.
It has become very important to me that we have more and deeper conversations around the real human dynamics at play when we ask people to speak up when they see something wrong. I believe only true understanding can bring us to a place where we can create an environment where people feel safe enough to speak up.
Speaking up, of course, has its own continuum. On one end, the issue may be minor with minimal negative impact; on the other, there is whistleblowing in extremely dangerous situations. The intensity of the underlying dynamics depends on where the matter falls on the spectrum. Nevertheless, the degree to which the individual experiences the cost is also dependent on their own capacity and tolerance levels.
When people become aware that something is wrong, the ethical signal often arrives before the evidence is complete. It may begin as an inconsistency, a conversation that does not sit comfortably, an unusual instruction, a transaction that does not make sense, or a pattern that is difficult to explain. The person may not yet know whether they have witnessed misconduct. They may only know that something does not feel right.
At that point, they may already begin to calculate the risk of speaking up. This calculation may not always be conscious. Sometimes we are not aware that our subconscious mind has already picked up signals of a threat. But very legitimate questions may become a preoccupation in the mind before the person reaches a conclusion about whether they will speak up.
Will I be believed? What if I am mistaken? Who can I trust? Will my identity remain confidential? What will happen to my career? Can I afford to lose my income? What will this do to my family? Will my colleagues distance themselves from me? What if the person involved is more powerful than I am?
These are not necessarily signs of weak character. They are often rational questions arising from an accurate reading of organisational power. And they become more real when, for example you are a breadwinner who is paying more than your fair share in black tax. If you lose your income, more than one family may be impacted.
People rarely decide whether to speak up by consulting the whistleblowing policy alone. They observe what happened to others who raised uncomfortable concerns. They notice whether previous allegations disappeared into a procedural void, whether confidentiality was breached, whether implicated leaders remained untouched, and whether the person who spoke became isolated, discredited, or quietly managed out of the organisation.
Therefore, silence often follows what people experience and what they observe. History shapes people’s understanding of the cost of courage.
We sometimes speak about whistleblowers as though the difficult part ends when the disclosure is made, but in reality, making the disclosure may be the beginning of a long and destabilising process. The individual may have to respond to challenges to their credibility, work alongside people implicated in the allegation, and endure months of uncertainty while an investigation unfolds. Their motives may be questioned. Ordinary mistakes may suddenly attract unusual scrutiny. Colleagues may become guarded around them. Opportunities may disappear without explanation.
The impact on the individual is often underestimated. It is highly likely that the individual will experience a decline in physical well-being as sleep is affected and high levels of anxiety affect concentration and productivity. A continuous surge in cortisol can inevitably have long-term effects on the person’s health. That in itself has ethical implications.
The person may find close relationships affected and may even experience financial pressure when they have to pay for legal counsel out of their own pockets. In the more extreme cases, the person may be forced to contemplate a future outside the profession or organisation in which they had expected to build their life.
By highlighting the price tag attached to speaking up, I am not advocating that people remain silent. What we need to move to is that we stop romanticising what we ask of them. If we tell people to do the right thing, we should also help them understand the possible consequences and show them how to prepare wisely.
This is often missing in how we train professionals, especially those in professions that may be more likely to have to blow the whistle. The same can be said about ethics and anti-fraud and corruption training in organisations. Little to no emphasis is placed on ensuring that individuals know how to speak up or blow the whistle safely.
Guidance should show that doing the right thing does not require doing it recklessly. It should include:
- Ensuring clarity about what they actually know. What did they observe directly? What were they told? What are they inferring from a pattern? What do they merely suspect?
- Thinking carefully about the safest and most competent channel through which to raise the concern.
- How to access legal, professional or ethical guidance before acting.
- How to preserve relevant information lawfully, avoid unnecessary exposure and build a small, trusted support system.
- Focus on attending deliberately to their physical and psychological wellbeing. High-stakes ethical action consumes energy. Support from an appropriately qualified professional can help them process fear, anger, guilt, and uncertainty without allowing those emotions to drive every decision.
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In addition, organisations should ensure that their whistleblower policies are comprehensive enough. Most tend to only focus on protection and address confidentiality, retaliation, physical safety, secure information handling and, in some cases, alternative working arrangements.
All of these are important. However, protection largely deals with threats around the person. It does not necessarily support the person carrying the experience. Support includes access to credible psychological care, practical guidance, regular human contact, clear updates and assistance with the workplace and relational consequences of the process.
A telephone number buried in a policy is not the same as an organisation ensuring that support is accessible, confidential and trusted. The distinction matters because a person may be physically safe and still be psychologically unravelling. They may remain employed while watching their professional future slowly contract. They may be formally protected from retaliation while experiencing exclusion, reputational damage or the subtle withdrawal of opportunities.
It is important that support begins early and is not only offered after the person begins to show visible signs of distress, nor should it end automatically when the investigation closes. The case may close before the harm does.
Another key component is ensuring managers are well trained to handle an individual speaking up or blowing the whistle in their office. The first organisational response to a concern is often made by a line manager who has received little or no preparation for that moment. Managers can therefore inadvertently increase the individual’s risk.
Some managers respond like a bull in a china shop. They become outraged, confront the alleged wrongdoer, convene meetings, copy large groups into emails and demand immediate answers. Their intentions may be good, but their urgency can expose the person who raised the concern, alert implicated parties, and compromise the integrity of a future investigation.
Then you have managers who are conflict-avoidant. They listen politely, minimise the concern, ask the employee to wait or quietly pass the matter to someone else without ensuring that anything happens. Avoidance does not neutralise the risk. It transfers it—to the person who spoke, to others who may be exposed and to the organisation itself.
Managers do not need to become investigators or therapists. But they do need to know how to receive a disclosure calmly, contain the information, identify immediate risks and activate the appropriate response. Timely action, fair process, appropriate feedback, visible protection, and support make trust possible. Delay, concealment, discrediting and tolerated retaliation make silence rational. The first response shapes everything that follows.
A disclosure is never only a transaction between the whistleblower and the organisation. Other people are watching whether anything changes and how long protection takes. They notice whether confidential information leaks, who becomes isolated and whose career continues uninterrupted. They also observe the less visible forms of retaliation. The whistleblower is left out of meetings, described as difficult, overlooked for opportunities or suddenly subjected to performance concerns that did not exist before.
Leaders may praise courage publicly while punishing inconvenience privately. Every consequence teaches the organisation something. Culture is not revealed by what the policy promises. It is revealed by what power does when truth becomes inconvenient.
Lastly, most organisations never consider whether the full cycle is completed. The last step is important in the creation of a speak-up culture. An investigation may produce a finding, but it does not automatically repair the damage created along the way. By the time a case closes, reputations may have changed, working relationships may have fractured and careers may have been interrupted. The whistleblower may be vindicated and still feel unsafe. A person who has been cleared may continue to carry suspicion. The wider team may have spent months choosing sides or avoiding difficult conversations.
Restoration must therefore be designed rather than assumed.
The person who spoke up may need psychological support, career repair, restored access to opportunities and protection from continuing retaliation. Where an allegation was not substantiated, the person implicated may require deliberate reputational and relational restoration. Teams may need facilitated conversations, changed reporting arrangements or an honest acknowledgement from leadership of what occurred.
Restoration does not always mean returning relationships to how they were. Sometimes the most ethical outcome is a safe new arrangement rather than forced reconciliation.
In the process, the organisation must also learn. What allowed the concern to develop? Why was it difficult to raise? Where did protection or support fail? What do the organisation’s incentives, power dynamics and managerial responses reveal about its culture? If the organisation closes the file without changing the conditions that produced the problem, it has processed a case but failed to learn from it.
A speak-up culture cannot be created by placing the entire moral burden on either the individual or the organisation. It is a reciprocal ethical contract.
The individual has obligations: raise concerns honestly, exercise care with facts, use channels responsibly, cooperate with due process and avoid weaponising allegations. The organisation has obligations: receive concerns competently, protect confidentiality, act promptly and independently, prevent retaliation, provide meaningful support, preserve fairness and repair the harm that remains.
These obligations are reciprocal, but they are not equal in weight, as the power is not equal. The organisation controls the processes, resources, information and career consequences. It determines whether responsible truth-telling becomes useful intelligence or a punishable offence. It therefore carries the greater duty.
I still want people to act courageously when they encounter wrongdoing. But I no longer believe we should build ethical systems that primarily depend upon people repeatedly demonstrating extraordinary courage simply to surface ordinary organisational risk.
The final question is not only whether people will speak up. It is what the organisation will do when they do.
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