Imagine going to a Civil War battlefield and instead of National Park Rangers there's a totally random guy off the highway doing a program on part of the battle that happened there. That's basically the leadership system now. Obviously the playerbase takes the ranks seriously. They'd be clamoring for them if they didn't exist but as I've said many times they do more harm than good when they are self-appointed roles. If there were no roles other than private then there'd have to be some mutual agreement forming between players. Since that doesn't happen too many players chasing after a cohesive game experience are willing to follow anyone who clicked on the role first. I know I'm not the only guy losing all interest in going along to get along following Joe Dirt from Phoenix with ten hours gameplay under his belt. There's a lot more of them than there are of useful and experienced people trying to take those roles.
Since there is a voice chat icon then instead of the voice icon showing up over their head a rank icon would be useful but first the ranks should really mean something in the first place. Very often times there are random people shouting orders. That's never going to change and I don't think it should, it'd disrupt too many other areas trying to empower leadership roles. The ranks in the game aren't necessary representative of whose running things and it will never always be the case.