Echoing a former POTUS, Crusader, "I feel your pain!"
I've always felt that a main function of the top Quality person in an organization is to help top management understand the
value of a consistent, effective quality system to the organization, but more importantly, to help each of the top managers be aware of, and plan to maximize the effect of
WIIFM (What's in it for me?) for his/her own future and advancement.
Back in the 1960s, Deming, Juran, and other Quality gurus recognized the value of enlisting the self-interest (long term and short term) of the top managers in instituting and implementing efficient quality systems in their organizations. The mantra of "build quality in" to reduce costs of inspecting and discarding nonconforming material caught hold (tenuously), but the organizations which really adopted good quality systems quickly found it removed barriers to selling their products and services when they could DOCUMENT to their customers that their systems were efficient and consistent in producing goods and services. Thus was born the idea of using third party services to put a stamp of approval on an organization's documentation of its quality system.
Obviously, there have been a few bumps along the way. Instances abound of organizations with managers which colluded to defraud the system to put a few extra bucks in their own pockets. The good news is that many of them soon get discovered and a few pay a heavy penalty in either money or jail time or both. Not a pure deterrent to a sociopath, but often a deterrent to the naive guy who is "tempted."
My advice: If you are the top quality officer in the organization, you need to have a frank education session with the CEO. If not, you need to enlist the help of the top quality officer. If neither of those avenues is open, you probably need to review my thread
Ethics - Moral law vs. Criminal law