Captaincy is an internal thing. Wearing 4 gold bars does not a captain make.
How you view yourself influences how other people see you. For example, an Australian actor was once used to impersonate Field Marshal Montgomery. In his autobiography (I Was Monty’s Double by Clifton James), he (loosely) said that “I was an actor in the Pay Corps, have never commanded men and intimidated by senior officers, yet they wanted me to be a General!” Talk about being out of depth.
In the end, although he looked like Monty and was indistinguishable from him at a distance, it wasn’t until he came out of Monty’s office snapping his fingers and thinking and behaving like a general that the whole thing began to work. That is, until Clifton James thought he was a general, nobody else did. The process was an internal one. Until you think (and behave) as if you are a Captain, nobody else will!