Lonewold_50, If the last three guys were sacked it would be good to hear the context of that, whether justified or not. I'm sure it's not quite as straight forward as your text implies.
Back to the article; I thought this was a very accurate statement by Psychologist Brene Browne who says:
‘Men walk this tightrope where any sign of weakness elicits shame, and so they’re afraid to make themselves vulnerable for fear of looking weak.’ I would argue that this is the same problem that women deal with, why wouldn't it be.
I think we've all read the crash comics where you can read between the lines that the guy in the left seat perhaps felt the loss of his own SA or feeling shame for some other failing on his part. It is these times when the cockpit gradient often suddenly becomes very steep perhaps as a perverted means of compensation.
Some famous countering lines to this I remember in successful incidents that have occurred are when the captain has said in one instance of a fire in the flight deck now successfully extinguished while in the middle of the pacific 'Can you guys see any reason why we shouldn't divert to XXXX?'
Or Captain Sullenberger once lined up with the Hudson on short final 'Is there anything I've missed?' (or words to that effect).
Nobody perceived these guys as weak for implying their SA may be lacking.
At the same time us captains are all too aware of the need not to be too deferential to the FO but rather 'bring him along with us'.
Some people are naturally better than others at this but it's a skill I think would can all learn and improve on as we go.
I always highlight to new FO's that their job is to find my mistakes and mine is to politely return the favour, this keeps us out of head office. I also like to add that should there be doubt in a critical phase of flight as to the correct procedure we will make best endeavours to do what is most conservative and talk about it later, not always possible but worth mentioning.