I think there's a reason why historically many cultures in a time of crisis tend to choose a leader to take responsibility until the crisis is dealt with, like the dictator in republican Rome. Pirates often elected and even unelected their captains, but during any action their power was absolute. And so on.

In the spectrum between consensus and dictatorship, there’s also democracy.

> So we're better with benevolent dictators.

Making a decision based on input from relevant coworkers while being competent in the domain you are making the decision in isn't exactly dictatorship?

This and, especially if the decision maker made it to their level based on merrit.

> This and, especially if the decision maker made it to their level based on merrit.

Assuming a competence hierarchy, that should equal competence. Unfortunately, oftentimes it's not a competence hierarchy. In those cases, it may take some time to trust in someone's competence.

Yes, undoubtedly. Although once appointed as a dictator the benevolence part normally slides.

So what happens in the happy case is a very complex system of figuring out who should be the dictator and when they need to be moved on. If you look at successful open source projects that process is often visible - a brutal communal negotiation (of global scope!) to work out who in the world is the person with the best motivation to control a project.