If we think about it, leadership at every level in the American forces have often had less rank than paper or a TO&E would suggest, or the good old "emmm-toe" allowance.
So many examples, like Audie Murphy, was a newly commissioned 2LT/O-1, 19 years old, on 26 January 1945 at Holtzwihr, was a company commander (a CPT/O-3 position) defended in place with 19 unwounded men against a German battalion main effort with 6 Panzers...and then counter-attacked making the Germans withdraw. With 19 men.
Leonidas in contrast had 7,000 men. On the 7th day, he dispersed almost 3,000 of his surviving men and stood in the pass with 1,800....300 of them Spartans. Leonidas was surrounded, out maneuvered, and slaughtered, save for 1 man. Call him Custer's Commanche. Leonidas is known to most American young adults, at least the fiction version, but they probably think Audie Murphy invented the washing machine or something.
Leonidas is known because of the movie The Three Hundred. When I was a kid I watched Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back.
It was said in the Cold War that an American sergeant made decisions that a Soviet captain made and an American captain made decisions that a Soviet general made.
Americans are trained to use personal initiative, or at least they were before Obama, the Soviets had to get the okay from their political officer before they did anything. Don't you just love that collective mind set!
That's why when they had us outnumbered 10 to 1, they knew they still needed about 5 more.