Meanwhile, putting in effort or even naturally just being someone that wants to empathize, find common ground and work towards a compromise is noble. When paired with good communication strategies and frankly when practiced through experience, you end up with highly likeable leaders who are the people you turn to in difficult times.
Don't hate the people who mean well but haven't learned to communicate like a pro. Save your anger for the people who are full of self-serving lies that don't even bother to manipulate you successfully because they don't really care how you feel.
The next time someone deploys Inexperienced Manager 101 aka "the shit sandwich" on you, ask yourself if they are malicious or just ignorant. It could be that they are just trying and failing.
In the presence of a power imbalance, combined with a lack of mutual respect, I think you’re absolutely right that NVC style observations are worse than a direct command. If there’s no explanation that would lead me, the more powerful person, to change my mind about the behavior, then offering conversational space for it is disingenuous.
I personally try to avoid situations where my direct managers, or my direct reports, don’t feel mutual respect, so I don’t think a power-imbalance is enough in and of itself to invalidate observation-request style discussions.
As it happens, if there’s no power imbalance, but also no mutual respect, I still tend to prefer NVC style communication; but I’ll admit that’s just a personal choice, it’s just a tool in the toolbox, and I tend to reach for it first, because I like the outcomes better. If my counterparty obviously hates it, “let’s get real” is next in the list.