Is your need to prove you're in charge more important than your desire to develop your team by encouraging their input?

When we are promoted, it is based on potential and the thought that we will use the additional rank for our people, not use it against them or at them! We have some truly amazing people in our armed services!

Empower your subordinates, build the team, train your replacement and encourage everyone to participate! You'd be amazed at the creativity and display of selfless service - we are serving with some great people, allow them to develop and lead. Everybody knows your rank, now use it for your people not at your people!

This is not an uncommon trap that many new junior leaders fall into. It's ultimately rooted in lack of self confidence. Once a leader knows that their team respects them as a leader, they tend to focus less on "proving they're in charge." Of course the onus of this falls on the leader himself, but if he's failing in this regard, a little advice from a senior can go a long way. Often times they won't even know that they are perceived that way.

Now if it's a senior leader that has this problem... it probably means he never got this talk when he was junior, and it's a much more complicated problem.

If you really want to achieve high goals, you have to get buy in from your team, or at minimum key players. This buy in encourages initiative, and opens dialogue that can lead to better shared understanding.

I learned long ago that while a may be in charge, I don't have a monopoly on good ideas. Some of the best I've heard came from E-4s.