Exactly. The grand command is just there for the general orders, but you are obviously allowed to take the initiative if you can.
What we did yesterday was rather simple, we gave general commands, of where regiments were supposed to be, or to capture specific flags and the regiments followed it. However, whenever there was an opportunity to capture an enemy flag, the regiments took it. Which was great. It made the game more fluent. It can also be pretty hard to see everything that is going on on the battlefield, if the general is just another person on the ground.