Officers make decisions....
SNCOs ensure that the decisions are carried out.....
The ORs carry them out.
As an "Aircrew Officer", I have spent over 30 years "with the colours" but only been in direct command of personnel for less than 5 years of that time. Therefore we have 2 types of officer - the Aircrew Officer and those who actually lead other people. In my experience, the better officers have been those who have risen from the ranks - especially engineers. However, it is a wate of resource to insist that aircrew have to come from the ranks as we learn our leadership "on the job".
So where do we draw the line? I suggest that the status quo is about right, although the very senior officers all come from the self taught aircrew stream - I think that perhaps this is one sided? Even more so, the multi engine aircrew officer learns to lead by supervision of others on his crew although he may not have line manager authority. It seems perverse that those at the top (the FJ stream) are those with probably the least leadership training, practise and training of all of us. They may be sharp, but havn't got a clue of how to motivate people. Perhaps it shows?