That's not what leadership means, unfortunately. Being right in a non-productive way is also a failure in leadership.

At the end of the day, if you do want to provide technical leadership, the skills to understand the team and how to interact with them effectively are at least as important as the technical skills.

If you cant achieve change, camt negotiate and cant explain, you are not providing leadership. Regardless of whether you are right.

Maybe that's the problem; he wasn't hired or looked to as a leader, or as previous commentators have said, he hadn't earned the respect of the team yet.