Western militaries have a parallel commissioned officer and enlisted command structure where an O1 (junior officer) is technically senior to an E9 (senior enlisted NCO) and can order them around.

The idea is that command requires a separate set of skills and that experience needs to start early to have senior officers in their 50s.

In practice, junior officers are "advised" by senior enlisted on how to order people around and not taking that advice is a bad idea.

Kind of like how companies have managers and technical tracks where a line manager ignoring a senior technical person always blows up in their face.