Why small NATO navies need senior officers at staff meetings

What is the most rank-inflated situation you know of?

NATO staff meetings, where even small navies need sufficiently senior representatives to be heard.

NATO staff meetings can encourage small navies to maintain more admirals than their size alone would suggest. Their representatives need sufficient rank to be heard by counterparts from larger services. A sailing-day anecdote illustrates the same status problem: a colonel insists on his title while an officer using his first name turns out to be a general. The institutional consequence is that rank-conscious officers encourage everyone around them to seek equivalent seniority. The example concerns representation and social hierarchy within a military organization.