Sounds like you're speaking more to influence than authority.
I think you're splitting hairs here. It doesn't matter what you want to call it -- guys aren't going to keep doing things the way you want them done the minute you walk away because they think you're a silly nub.
Agree the "DH wants this..." is poor leadership, but when you show up to a boat with very little training and the culture is "hehe everyone knows Ensigns are clueless" yet they're expected to lead a division, there's little legroom to do it any other way.
Had a discussion with a gunny gone Navy officer and he absolutely hated how most CPOs he encountered acted like USN rank structure goes O1 < O2 < E7 < O3 < E8/E9 < O4+. Can't say I disagree because I saw a Chief respond to a guy who showed up with me "hah, that's cute...you tried to give me an order and you don't have fish." He was dead serious.
And this reflects in the way enlisted Sailors prioritize things. If you tell someone to do something out of necessity while standing duty that contradicts what a CPO said, even if you are correct, the sailor is likely to prioritize what the CPO said. I mostly ran into this when the COB would tell the nukes something stupid out of his lane because like most forward enlisted guys, he had little idea of what happened aft of the watertight door. It was interesting because me, being only in the USN, didn't notice the stuff that he noticed CPOs doing that completely undermines JOs authority. Like anything else in enlisted culture, the "stupid Ensigns, don't listen to them" mentality comes from the Chiefs.
This is one aspect where aviation really does it right -- they actually show up to their first command with a skillset that is useful toward the mission of the USN. Gives a lot more credibility to the guy.
And then again, trying to change a process so quickly when brand new to the game is also an indication of poor leadership, depending on the person's overall experience and maturity level.
I disagree here. There are some things that are obvious when they are jacked up. When I showed up to my boat, the division I had didn't plan maintenance. The guy writing the 'schedule' would just compact everything onto Monday. It was a shit-show and made everyone work extra long to scramble to get things done because they didn't know what they were actually doing that day until 1000. The CPO was a geobachelor and was in no rush to have his division finish work in a timely manner, plus he thought it was beneath his paygrade to intervene.
It was fairly obvious to see that was screwed up, but trying to change that stupid process as the new Ensign on the block was damn near impossible. By the time I got qualified I had moved on and some other Ensign had to deal with the immovable object.
