Wimp. The proper behavior is to refuse to perform an immoral or illegal act and to decline to follow an immoral or illegal direction. That leaves your superio

Wimp. The proper behavior is to refuse to perform an immoral or illegal act and to decline to follow an immoral or illegal direction. That leaves your superiors with choices of their own: change their behavior, ignore you, or fire you. If they change their behavior, great; the company is better for your convictions. If they ignore you (denial) and continue bad actions, you can always look for another job and/or continue to advocate change from within. You are not participating in the bad behavior and have performed your duty to communicate the problem. If they fire you, you may have wrongful termination recourse that you definitely won't have if you resign. The cold walkout, on the other hand, only affects management teams capable of shame (unlikely if the leadership has corrupted values) or susceptible to public pressure. Your specific challenge is incompetence, not morality. You will always be surrounded by incompetence, if not occasionally sharing your own. While incompetence may be a moral failing, people with good intentions can improve things if sufficiently motivated. Your leaving is unlikely to do that. Instead of having a knock down, drag out, face-to-face, serious reality-check conversation, risking strong and unpleasant emotions en route to a new consensus, you ran away. You bailed when the company obviously needs someone of your experience, skill, insight and expressiveness. You may have other reasons to quit, but the one you gave showed cowardice in the face of a leadership challenge. Next time, don’t be a wimp. Stand and hold your ground.