To some people who may not be "instinctive leaders" it still becomes second nature to be the one who is in charge, who decrees, more or less, "this is how we do it", set up plans etc. They may not even have a high-status job as their scene, it's just the same with a working woman who's also a wife - she's suppsosed to take charge of cleaning, driving the kids, raising them to some extent, caring for family relations, birthdays etc, so she may develop a streak of "I'm in charge here" without really knwing it.

And other people - the kids too, if we're talking the home arena here, just using that example - then, feel they have to contest her or protect themselves a little, because her claims become too obvious (and too hard to bear for others) plus they may be backed up by shortcuts to nail it home like "Okay, i own this house/I'm your mom!/Would you do it like this at work? then what would your boss say?" The control freak, or the guy who needs to know everything is going by the rüles, vcan be a very hard person to live with (and if those feelings just drift into the s/m relation, then it might not be very good)

Or in the military, many officers are not the kind of shouting, red-face type we recognize as "type A Military Men" but still they have a powerful sense of being in charge, and that may rub off to other areas of life. Psychologists do not often talk about these kind of roles, but I read a brilliant, and unexpectedly funny and sharp book, Excess Baggage by the psychologist Judith Sills; she manages to bring out the cost of the attitudes we keep up and that have grown out of, precisely, our strong points. She also manages to discuss this seriously but with a sense of fun, observation and an eye to the potential for change (some psychologists sound like your trouble is always heavily predetermined, "it's rooted in your childhood" don't they?)

She doesn't discuss BDSM of course, but she does explore personal dominance and feelings of inadequacy and unhappy submission, of fear of moving on. One point she makes is that you can't really love someone who is consciously perfect, who exudes "I'm perfect, I'm right and I know it" maybe you can admire that person because he/she really is wonderful and gifted, but it's hard to love someone who doesn't show vulnerability, maybe even who doesn't have weaknesses.

I'd hazard this way of showing vulnerability and need for help is dramatrized in BDSM, it becomes part of both the submissive and the Dominant role, and that's part of the pull this lifestyle has on many of us. To me, being submissive (plus altering my gender) forces me (or gives me space) to bring out a vulnerability and caringness that is not always part of the vanilla male role, although I'm a caring person in vanilla life too. Exactly how this balances with my "normal" day demeanour I haven't figured out 100% yet.