The phenomenon of the young officer overcompensating because he is out of his depth is not limited to the military. Kids in their early 20s frequently don’t cut impressive figures, and are self-conscious, anxious and insecure about their capacity in a personal sense to be authoritative, so they try to use the formal authority the system gives them to bluster through. Senior folk have been through the learning curve mill a number of times (with each promotion) and are older, qualities that noobs don’t possess.
As I say, the problem is not limited to the military. In industrial manufacturing or mining, you can have junior managers or engineers, with shiny degrees, placed in nominal superiority over senior foremen.
In medicine, junior doctors have greater nominal authority than senior, experienced nurses. Junior lawyers are nominally in charge of senior support staff who just know more than them about the nuts-and-bolts stuff that they don’t teach in university.
The problem as perceived by the junior officer or equivalent is that they don’t want to look weak or look like they completely conceded authority to the NCO, and thus be perceived as ineffectual. So they go too far the other way. But there are ways of saving face. Junior officer who asks NCO “What do we do?” is a schoolboy wetting his pants. Asking “What are our options?” on the other hand leaves junior officer with the final decision, even though it might be clear that the NCO is guiding him in a particular direction.
In fairness to the junior officer, all new postings into positions of leadership involve some degree of limit-testing by the old hands, and some degree of (on the part of the old hands) seeking to be the first in the new guy’s ear to reprosecute earlier decisions made by the old leader. Being alert to ask approprite questions in these situations is usually the answer, rather than just throwing one’s weight around.