i think the notion of a commander is a very interesting people-ops strategy.
it keeps the little element of subjectivity in things like - when do you kick off a build, how long do you run the integration/release process, etc
You do lead with automation, but the introduction of human subjectivity is a low-overhead way to still have flexibility.
More likely, they have a few bugs here and there in the deployment tools that require human supervision and intervention, and they don't have the resources right now to fix them and to make it more reliable.
There is no need for flexibility in a repetitive process, unless there are bugged edge cases
You do lead with automation, but the introduction of human subjectivity is a low-overhead way to still have flexibility.