>>>It strikes me that the military way of doing things, while appropriate in battle, might have downsides for those who end up flying desks.
I once read that the "Mad Men" business culture of the 60's, much of which is now considered "toxic", was largely built by WW2 and Korean War veterans. Guys who had spent years in those traumatizing battles had a unique perspective on work and communication that perhaps hasn't aged well for everyone else. Wish I could dig up a link to that....
>>>In particular if people are so accustomed to taking orders, how do you know whether or not you have an optimal balance of command versus information flowing upwards and initiative from subordinates?
1. The commander sets and disseminates alerts called "Commander's Critical Information Requirements" (CCIRs). These are key pieces of information that EVERYONE should be on the look-out for, and route up the chain as soon as possible. This is stuff that the commander considers to have great effect on his decision-making, possibly leading him to pursue a different course of action.
2. Mission-type orders.[1] This is where subordinates exercise their initiative. A commander tells you WHAT he wants done, you figure out HOW to do it best. You are usually only given a few hard restrictions on what not to do, but that's typically only to prevent things like fratricide or potentially screwing up the bigger plan. With mission-type orders, subordinate leaders are understood to be closer to the problem, and therefore better positioned to solve it quickly and efficiently.
>>>And does the authoritarian system produce good enough people in the highest ranks, or might top brass skills be better if they weren't so shaped by it themselves?
That's a very tough issue that the military is grappling with. Arguments have been made that career progression is too rigidly defined. General Petraeus said he had a highly unusual professional education and career path, contrary to the conventional wisdom of "how to get promoted". There's been numerous articles painting most US generals as "optimistic but otherwise mediocre yes-men".[2] The Air Force struggles with the "Fighter Mafia" because all of their leadership is men who spent most of their adult lives flying fighter jets, and they throw shade on pretty much every other priority or mission set. The promotion system worked when there were fewer "moving parts", fewer specializations. But with the explosion in complexity of warfare, both from a technical-level (UAVs, electronic warfare, cyber security, etc..) and from an operations perspective (full spectrum operations and the Three-Block War[3]).....guys who have spent 20 years just doing infantry work find themselves with some limitations in their professional experience. Especially considering how many of them were selected in the first place, when they were brand-new officers: cardio-respiratory endurance and "cultural fit", mostly. This is partly because the military, and the Marine Corps in particular, considers everyone an equally-competent generalist. It was probably true in 1945 but not today. Perfect example:
Me: "We're making changes to the Sharepoint site for the training exercise. It's gonna be heavier and eat up more bandwidth."
My (tank-driving) boss: "Is that gonna impact our...spectrum?" [context: the new General at the time was harping on the importance of EM signature management]
Me: "No Sir, because for this exercise all of that Sharepoint network traffic will be going over the fibre optic links in the ground, not over the air via our radio antennas or satellite links."
My tanker boss wasn't a dumb guy. But he has no formal education in electrical engineering, radio theory, etc... You can't just drop a white paper in his lap[4], and expect him to speak intelligently on the subject the next day. Especially at 50+ years old. He would just drop "...spectrum?" into conversations randomly whenever I mentioned a technical issue (which was often). Now, we do have very senior technical specialists, but they are almost never the operations officers or commanders of major combat formations. They play a support role, and rightfully so. Everything exists to SUPPORT Operations, which is almost always (infantry/armor/artillery). But how those Ground Combat leaders have been prepared for even 4th-generation warfare leaves a lot to be desired, IMO...
>>>I guess you don't have to deal with longer term burnout issues as most people leave by the time they're 40.
Our burnout timeline is simply accelerated. I've seen mid-career professionals (early 30's) with combat deployments burnt out in under 3 years at high op-tempo units. Talent management in the military is completely broken[5, pg6 of PDF]. The military has a 3-year work location rotation for most people, which means every summer we suffer ~30% turnover in personnel, which wrecks your local-level institutional experience and proficiency. There are certain multi-national military exercises we do annually and you see the same mistakes/friction points EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. As you said, most people quit around ~40yo....but Colonels and Generals usually need 20-25yrs to get promoted. So your senior leaders aren't necessarily the best...merely those who could endure the soul-grinding brutality of the system the longest.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics
[2]https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general...
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Block_War
[4]https://tinyurl.com/yym2vlpv
[5]https://news.usni.org/2019/07/17/gen-bergers-strategic-guida...