That's standard in Western militaries. It means units aren't paralyzed by unexpected circumstances while they wait for communication to go up and down the chain of command, and it improves resilience if communications or senior officers are incapacitated.
I'm interested to know what country you come from where this isn't standard? Do you find that that lack of flexibility is culturally just in the military there or present in your countries government and corporate cultures as well?
It's been well reported on that Russia doesn't work like that, with junior officers unable to use initiative and the whole system being very slow to respond to changing events. The reason it operates like this was shown when they did try having a more independent unit, which resulted in the Wagner Group mutinying.