I've had some bad experiences working with first time directors and usually the problem is that they don't know what they want or they can't communicate what they want for the shot. I ask them what the shot is about and they tell me 'oh, I want a close-up' but what I wanted to know about is what the shot's emotional context so I can give advice on whether we should shoot it in a low angle, a high angle, tracking etc. Once I know the director doesn't really know what he's doing I try to give suggestions and maybe that's why some of them think I'm trying to take over.
Some directors know the context of the entire script and these are ones I can work well with (and trust) because instead of us trying to guess what each one is trying to achieve we're passing ideas back and forth trying to get what the goal of the shot is.
Ridley Scott said (this may not be his actual words) 'when you're a director, you direct, you don't muck around'
Anyways, these are all just my opinions and observations from my experiences. Obviously it's hard to trust a director who doesn't know what he's doing.