I guess that we talk a lot about how a leader is not the same as a boss, and how people should lead and not command. It seems that Valve have created an environment that make leaders, well, to lead and to make decisions... Does any of this remembers "Lord of the Flies"? (Of course, without all much drama, and being able to leave it)

Of course, the risk of that kind of approach is that there's no really a way of make external decisions, as there is no way of disrupting the spontaneous organisation (because there's always going to be some organisation), so consensus with "the group" (meaning basically the leaders) needs to be reached. And that can be very difficult.