A reservist QFI chum on our UAS in the early '90s was ex-BOAC, ex-ba and had worked his way up from DC-7 F/O to Concorde captain. His tales of the early days were fascinating; apparently everyone used to stand up when the captain came down for breakfast at the crew hotel; he would then decide when to leave for the airport. In flight the Captain was certainly God, but my chum had never been on the receiving end of a Baron's nastiness. Although he was once hauled up before management for telling the cleaners to get off his aeroplane until he had left. He did have other brushes with management, who appeared to be his only foe! Our students loved flying with him (apart from the deafening levels of radio and intercom he set) - and the old rogue was an utter villain who would enjoy a bit of illicit dogfighting when the Boss or CFI weren't around!
There were some 'Baronial' types in the AAR world. One Sqn Ldr, ex-Victors, had co-pilots who might as well have been named Bader - because they had no operating legs! Whereas the rest of us would normally split the flight 50/50, so one pilot would do the take-off and first half of the flight and the other would do the second half and landing.
When 'crew co-ordination' was reinvented by the airlines and termed CRM, the late RFK once remarked "CRM? That's for poofs!". He didn't really mean it though.
I wonder what the Barons would have thought about the recent EasyJet TV documentary and the flight deck standards displayed by some of the pilots? Instant cardiac arrest, probably - but that documentary has certainly stiffened my resolve never to fly Orange again....