Quoting from this site:
Take, for example, what a soldier recently told me about the Afghanistan campaign. What worked, in the initial campaign, was Special Forces soldiers who shed their uniforms, grew out beards, and lived among the people, earning their trust. Al Qaeda had almost no place to hide, when American soldiers were communicating that effectively with local communities inside Afghanistan.
You’d think that the effectiveness of this technique would have led to an enthusiastic adoption of distributed leadership as at least an option throughout the Army. Instead, a new commander was rotated in, who was a true believer in hierarchical principles. Soldiers out of uniform? Bearded? Unthinkable. Forbidden!
The result? Things aren’t going so well in Afghanistan these days. American soldiers, instead of being trusted friends, are now easily identifiable strangers and, ultimately, targets. It was an unbelievably stupid change — it is precisely the reason why, in wartime, effective commanders at low ranks need to be advanced rapidly above the peacetime-bureaucracy-born senior officers and given authority to fire all the idiots. Nations that don’t do this, don’t win their wars.