Agree with this. A few days after I started, the engineering manager (the guy who hired me) quit. After that, it was kind of a clusterfuck because the CEO refused to make any real decisions because he was afraid of upsetting any of the engineers. As a result, very few decisions got made, and any deadlocks resulted in hours of frustrating and anger on both sides. I tried to put my foot down on one of the projects that I owned and essentially said, "You put me in charge of this project, and this is how I want to do it," but the "committee" overrode my decisions and the CEO didn't back me up. A terrible way to run a team. I left a few months later.

So yes, I agree. Even if you don't have a manager, there must be a decision maker that has the authority and freedom to make those decisions, even if they don't directly manage the others.