I confess that, like most newbie commanders, I am hesitant to leave base. A relatively minor inducement for newbie comms to get out and lead from the front would be if all ships in the sector with the commander's ship got lead indicators. This would sort of represent the presence of a command communications center such as currently exists in most modern militaries.
A clarification to the original post of this idea in the wrong forum for those who misunderstood: this is not to raise the morale of the troops. It is another inducement for the commander not to sit in base all game long (other than the fact that it often means "fail" in small games).
