Even worse. If these high ranking people are so afraid for their careers that they will say these things even if they don't believe them then the few people who do believe it are indeed quite powerful.
Not necessarily. Preference falsification is a thing; it's quite possible for a organization to enforce compliance with a principle which no individual member of the organization sincerely holds. In cases of large scale preference falsification, everybody lies to fit in with everybody else, who are also lying for the same reason.
Such scenarios may be susceptible to preference cascades though, when people realize that they're actually in good company and suddenly feel free to act and say as they truly wish. When that happens, change is rapid. The personal guards of a hated dictator may switch sides overnight and execute the leader they would have killed others for the day before.
