We discuss it often on in The Cage. We even come up with terms to label it like "insta dom" or it's counterpoint "insta sub." Those who are new to community, or remain staunchly ignorant. Fooling their self, and sometimes others, by assuming a title confers ability or authority.
One of the narrower aspects to me is writing or speaking with presumed authority. Someone will write something with an air (err?) of presumed authority. Often, it seems, unconsciously.
Few things shut me down faster than someone who writes or speaks as if they are a lecturing teacher in front of a room of imbeciles. As if they are the learned authority on a topic, deigning to enlighten the masses.
i hate it when i see it in my self too. i think it is something we all have to guard against? That there is something in most of us that always wants to be right. To me, unseeing, unlistening authority puts distance between us, people. Most of my self editing involves adding qualifiers like: "i think" or "to me" or "it seems to me." It's not that i think it's wrong to hold an opinion or point of view, just that i think honesty demands humility. That we always are open to the fact that we could be wrong. Maybe it's because i came from an absolutist background where people controlled others by using ultimate or absolute authority, often subtly. It was a pecking order, so pretty much everyone got to be over someone else, even the passive aggressive.
On the other hand, nothing/no one opens me faster than an open, vulnerable and honest person. Tricky, because there are sales people out there who know how to act. But genuine people to me exhude power in honesty not in a facade of know it all, or worse, being convinced they really do know so absolutely that they do not need to see or hear the person or people they are 'speaking' too.