When I leveled up to level 24 I put a single aptitude point into leadership. This raised my leadership level from 0 to 1. When I did this my max fleet points went from 29 to 27.
Spoiler
Here is a screen shot showing my fleet points before I increased my leadership.
(http://i.imgur.com/oqchN.png)
Here is my character screen before I put the point in
(http://i.imgur.com/8YmBa.png)
After i put the point in (Nothing noticeably wrong so far)
(http://i.imgur.com/IZPB5.png)
And here is a screen shot after I had increased my leadership.
(http://i.imgur.com/SxbVJ.png)