Bernard J. Ebbers have all claimed ignorance about the financial condition of their fraud-riddled companies. Regardless of the outcomes, chief executives should not expect much sympathy from their peers. Whether or not their claims of ignorance are true, CEOs have the burden to know what the company is doing at all times, they are entrusted with their clients to make the sound financial decisions regardless. Ignorance is not bliss, and should never be used as a excuse for making irrational decisions. "Saying you didn't know what was going on in your own company is ridiculous," You're either lying, or you shouldn't have the responsibility to begin with.
Ebbers failed in their most basic duty to their shareholders oversight of the corporation. You can't be in business without understanding the factors that drive the cost, if Ebberts had the intuition to focus at the company’s cash-flow statement. He would have seen something amiss. The article spelt out WorldCom as being negligent in every sense. How can someone not see it 11 billion dollars wrongfully spent?
Ignorance will and can never be a viable defense when you are in charge of a multibillion dollar company the job of a CEO is to stay intimately involved with his company, a role that far too many CEOs are abandoning in order to become global, You can't distance yourself from your own company, turn it over to someone else, and then take the 'I didn't know' defense.
A CEO is responsibility is to engrain ethics into the moral fiber of his organizations, in an effort to do this he should delegate responsibilities to manager who are of the highest integrity, CEO forget to look at the Grand Scheme of things when looking at this. Base on the Utilitarianism which states that that the organization should do what is in the best interest of the company