For me, there's a default level of respect that is given to a person and to a person's position that are related, but still independent of each other, and they can increase or decrease depending on a person's actions.
Way back in my 20s I had a manager who was power tripping against me stating I did not respect her. I told her that I would do as she says because she is my manager, but respect is earned. She and her boss both argued that respect is given. I gave up and a few weeks later I quit because that job (and some personal stuff) destroyed my mental health. Ultimately it was the best decision I could have made for myself at that time.
When I was an E4, I worked with a piece of shit E6 who decided he hated me for no reason one day. I had never been disrespectful to him but he went out of his way to try and get me in trouble and was just generally a dick to me every chance he could be. His attempts to get me in trouble all failed because literally I did nothing wrong. He once told me I needed to respect him because he was an E6 and had earned it. I told him I give his rank the respect it deserves, I stand at parade rest when talking to him, I answered his questions respectfully with a "Yes, Sergeant" or "No, Sergeant" but due to the way he treats me and started treating me like crap for no reason, I did not and would not respect him as a person. He did not like that, but there literally wasn't anything he could do about it. He told me I needed to drop out of college and focus 100% of my efforts on being a soldier and I should just do everything he says because he outranks me. I told him the Army is not my career, I'm doing my 4 years and getting out, and so ETS'ing with a degree is more important to me than spending that time to go above and beyond the standards the Army required. And of this was said respectfully, and was overheard by his section lead, so while he was upset I didn't just bend over and suck his E6 dick, he couldn't do shit about it because ultimately I was 100% in the right. My uniform was clean, pressed, had all the creases it was supposed to and my boots were shined. They weren't a mirror every day because I didn't spend 3 hours shining my boots every day, I did once a week and then kept them above the minimum standard required through the week, then my next day off I'd tear them down and rebuild the shine. So my uniform was still in better shape than most peoples so him singling me out was very much bullshit. The guy ended up getting himself in trouble more than anything else. I never got in trouble for how I treated him since ultimately I never did shit to him and always gave him the respect required for his rank. But not 1 step beyond that, and he didn't like that, but there wasn't jack shit he could do about it. His own supervisor (an E7) made him apologize to me on 2 occasions when he witnessed his bullshit.
Like when he told me to do something which that morning the E8 in charge passed down to us that we were not to do this specific thing. So when I said I couldn't do that for him over the phone, he forced me to get relieved so I could come up there and explain in person why I wouldn't do what a higher ranking NCO told me to do. So I explained according to E7 Guard Commander X, E8 Master Sergeant Y passed down these instructions. And the response was "So, Guard Commander X told you this?" "Yes, Sergeant" "That's all you had to say, get the fuck out of my office." I relayed that conversation to the Guard Commander (who was in my chain of command, this guy was not) And within 5 minutes, I was called back to his office, that his boss shared with him, and got to stand there while this E6 being glared at by his E7 boss apologized for his behavior.
Then when I was close to ETSing the dude "randomly" chose me to be piss tested every single time it was his job to conduct it. Literally on my day off while I was an hour north of post at college he couldn't find me in the barracks to "randomly" piss test me, so he told everyone if they saw me, I needed to go to him. So 4 hours later when I returned from school, I got the message, and then he chewed me out for not arriving earlier. Like bitch, its my day off, I was at college, I came as soon as I got back, what more do you want? Turns out he didn't even need me, he let slip he only needed someone with the last name starting with "R" so he was able to easily just piss test someone else. But he intentionally was singling me out to be his "R" person every single time. That guy was a piece of shit and I think exemplified this perfectly.
Sorry, my wife's family had strong military background and mine as well and a lot of my friends were prior service as well across different branches (Marines, Army, Chair Force), I forget sometimes that not everyone knows these things or can't pick it out from context.
