Interestingly I read a history of the French Army mutinies in WWI. One thing that came out of that is lower commanders had a duty to question orders from superiors if they didn't think the goals were achievable. Previously any hint at not following an order was considered "cowardice" and millions of men were led into insane situations with impossible objectives because nobody thought orders from the top could be challenged.

If we're making odd analogies to politics I think most high performing teams tend to end up in the Marxist "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Or instead of the military, think of a basketball team. How do five excellent athletes work together. The coach is not a "dictator", nor is anyone on the team, but they also don't vote on plays. They know what each other is good at and, based on the situation given to them, execute in a way that is most likely to succeed.

US military doctrine does often play out like this in the field. We prefer maneuver warfare strategies and tactics to positional and attrition ones as a general rule, and a key element of maneuver warfare is the units doing the work having the unilateral ability to maneuver or retreat regardless of some greater plan.

The battlefield is not a democracy, nor a top down dictatorship. In proper combined arms maneuver warfare its more akin to a network of syndicates working towards a common goal.