That's the thing though, he's very inefficient but wants things his way regardless of any advice or input from his officers.
That's what pisses off Riker - he's demanding wholesale changes that entails a lot of extra work at a time of crisis for no discernable gain other than to stamp his authority on the ship and crew.
For no other discernible gain, that
anyone else knows about, not the crew, & not even the viewers. That's the thing. In this scenario, he is not just the new, replacement captain, antagonistically stealing Picard's ship out from under him. He is the mission specialist, with a greater understanding about the needs & circumstances of the mission than anyone else aboard, including even Picard, who he accurately expects is on a suicide mission. (& likely trap)
The guy is expertly prepared for this situation, before he even steps aboard. He knows every detail about the ship, it's functionality & tack, the crew, their roles, their configuration, their predictable objections & biases, even their personnel files, his adversaries, the crisis details, & the who, what, where, why, & when that is in play throughout all of it. I suspect he even knew they'd dislike him, because why wouldn't they? None of them
want this.
So given no other option, he chose to play the staunch role they might cast him in, because even still, the orders must be followed & they're supposedly the best at it, & there's no wiggle room, similar to Picard with the Sheliak situation, where he had to also just give demanding orders, but at least he had the luxury of a familiarized, trusting crew
The crew, OTOH, know absolutely nothing about
any of it until Nechayev & Jellico inform them. They've been deliberately reduced to "Default Starfleet Crew", on a need to know basis, on a moments notice, because none of this is SOP, in how you'd transfer command of a whole ship/crew, without that the captain gets to select officers of his own preference
And it is not yet that time of crisis, when everyone is disgruntled about being worked. It's prep FOR a crisis... that they hope to avert. This is an impossibility that should fail & the shakedown needs to happen pronto, beforehand, so that they CAN be what the mission calls for (& aren't yet)
There's no real need for psychoanalysis, but if I were to go down that road, I would suggest Jellico is not unlike Kyle Riker in some ways. His style was tailor-made to piss off Riker.
Ok, to the topic at hand. This is a solid observation about Kyle, I hadn't even considered. I think over the course of the show, between his relation to his dad, Jellico, Nechayev, & the later Pressman, (& even the mark on his record from DeSoto) it's arguable he has something of a hair trigger, kneejerk reaction to unchecked authority, built off the guilt of having been a blind order follower noob, that got a whole crew killed, by his actions. It's really just head canon though, but I'm here for it.
Picard is interestingly something special as a leader, who's debated others about actually valuing having a direct subordinate who he
wants to keep him in check. He has a mighty lofty impression about the integrity of his role, being one that is potentially possible to get lost in, Picard himself being a man who struggles with the shame & consequences of a very unwieldy youth.
In this sense, Riker hit the lottery, because Picard might be the only guy out there, who he could be a good subordinate to, because the guy
wants greatly for his commands to be understood, & that's the only way Riker even likes answering to people, having some say or agency in what he's being ordered to do. It's debatably an overcorrection, for someone in his circumstance, because ultimately, unless a danger is posed, he HAS to follow all the orders, whether he likes, approves, wants or even respects them or who's giving them.
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