Why Beatty commanded like a ship's captain

Did Admiral Beatty approach command from the perspective of a ship's captain?

Yes. He tended to treat a formation like a single ship, without the multi-unit experience that destroyer-flotilla command might have taught him.

Beatty continued to think in terms of handling one ship rather than coordinating a formation. That outlook could work on a bridge where one captain directs one vessel, but it did not prepare him to manage the interactions among several ships. Command of a destroyer flotilla earlier in Beatty's career might have supplied the missing multi-unit experience. By the time Beatty was senior enough for major commands, however, such a developmental posting was no longer realistic.