Well, I disagree entirely. First off, it is obvious we are supposed to side with Poe. Holdo is expecting Poe to follow orders. That he doesn’t is not surprising because she doesn’t share what she is doing. And ultimately it is Poe who turns Holdo’s cunning plan into a disaster. Poe sends Finn and Rose off to solve the problem his way. A daring venture full of risks with a possible payoff. But because they do not find the hacker that Maz recommends (probably because he can be trusted) and they end up with DJ and DJ learns of Holdo’s plan, when the mission goes sour he uses that to get himself out of trouble. As a result most of the resistance is destroyed, rather than losing the one ship and hiding out on Crait until someone came to get them. Poe is a hotshot pilot but that is not what makes a leader. Knowing when to not be the hotshot and play it safe is the lesson he needed and he got it the hard way. However the movie makes it very clear that if he hadn’t gone ahead and destroyed the dreadnaught at the beginning, it would have wiped them out later. So his first reckless act that he got demoted for turned out to be the right thing to do at the time, but after the fallout, Poe is making wiser decisions. Not bad for a character Abrams almost killed off.
That story line is full of old war movie tropes. How Holdo treats Poe, how Poe reacts, and how he learns. That may not be your real world experience, but it is many people’s. And Holdo doesn’t seem like she is much of a people person. One of those who rose to command through brilliant tactics. She obviously is a friend of Leia’s. So her tough treatment of Poe makes a lot of sense. Military methods of leadership are not the same as private sector methods. The military needs people who will follow orders without question plus brilliant strategists. So using civilian leadership techniques to critique a military interaction doesn’t work well. The same rules don’t apply. There is a reason why the traditional drill sergeant is tough and gruff. Dressing down a subordinate in a military setting isn’t about their well being, it is about their discipline and willingness to follow orders. In a military setting you need someone who will not panic and will act on their training no matter the price. In a civilian setting an employee’s life is rarely on the line and you rarely need blind obedience. So it is comparing apples to oranges.
Drill sergeants aren’t field commanders and their roles are different.
As long as you’re pointing to movies as an example, compare the first act in Full Metal Jacket (the infamous boot camp scenes) to the second and third acts in the field. The drill sergeant broke down and rebuilt his recruits because that’s his job. The field commanders have a much more informal relationship with their subordinates based on mutual respect and an understanding of who’s in charge.
The field commander who dresses down Joker in front of his fellow soldiers comes off as an overbearing ass who’s lost touch with the men beneath him, but Joker’s squad commander earns his subordinates’ respect through openness and camaraderie (and because they went through boot camp together).
Band of Brothers is another great example. Nixon, Winters, and Lipton are in charge, no question, but their subordinates respect them because the respect is returned.
Holdo dressed down Poe in a situation where a conversation about her plan and how Poe could contribute would have won him over; giving people like Poe direction and purpose is key. She’s a crappy leader if thousands of people needed to die in a slow-moving chase scene for Poe to learn a lesson about leadership.