You have a misunderstanding of what leadership is and you're confusing leadership with tyranny. Nobody respects or follows tyrants. That's not how leadership works.
See, the military is a highly efficient organization. It must be, otherwise it fails. You'll lose soldiers and equipment and training time. If you don't see your subordinates as people willing and able to make their own judgements and decisions and train them accordingly, you'll fail (and not only in the military). And in case you're not taking it into account, all servicemen go through military training. All servicemen are taught and train to lead and to follow. A lieutenant is below a captain in the chain of command but he's above sergeants. So he MUST lead and follow at the same time. All people are trained to lead and to follow. Nobody just leads and nobody just follows. It's not a question of "chiefs and indians".
The most effective and time-efficient way to lead is to give your subordinates broad concepts and let them work out the details. And that works wherever. You're all working towards the same goal. They trust you know what you're doing and you have trained them, so you trust them in what they are doing. To tell them what you people must accomplish (and leave space for them to discuss this if needed). They work out how. Otherwise you'll micromanage and be a bad leader; your mission will not be accomplished or it'll be subpar. And you'll not have time to micromanage anyway. Your performance will also be subpar.
And no, you're not talking about something broader, you're emitting an opinion on a topic you don't understand based on preconceived notions you didn't gave yourself the trouble to check if they are true or not. The next time this happens, just don't. Check first.
