Good leaders generally do a lot more coordination work, which typically requires an order of magnitude more communication.

from Venkatesh Rao's Blyg ↗ · excerpt of v1

In my experience, good leaders build from their personal strengths rather than copying what others do.[1] Coordination can come from stigmergy as we know :P

There's also the question of what's being led? I have heard direction setting about PI being a key node in a larger ecosystem with lots of potential branches. That seems very different than a typical think tank structure with a charismatic president doing lots of coordination keeping funders happy and minions moving in the direction of that direction.

FWIW there is no shortage of coms from you and PI. It's just different than lots of sync meetings. There is also not metaphysical invariant that it has to come from one person per say.

Anywho it seems that you're already making moves in this direction per the email yesterday though uplifting Lieutenants to support what you're trying to do seems productive. I am reminded of the RenPhil adage that every visionary needs a COO.

Perhaps protocol field building needs a bunch of practical BBN COO types to keep the branches connected.

[1] FWIW there does seem to be an assumed Captain of Industry / General model of leadership. Ghengis Khan focused on picking key subordinates and having resilient operational protocols (Yassa, yam). I am familiar in the public sector where there's a lot of shiny front people who aren't really the ones setting directions and more like bright shiny objects trotted out.