Who takes the reigns?

Sometimes it is obvious who is taking the reigns of a project and moving it forwards. Other times it is not so obvious. Is it the person with authority who moves things forwards, or is it the person that gets stuff done?

This is a tough one and i am not sure i really know the answers. I am sure theya re all situational and personal.

In my current status i have no real design authority, yet i find myself doing a lot of the nitty gritty design work to keep my programmers productive. It is important to me to keep them productive, as it keeps the job more interesting, and i personally hate wasted development time. So here i am finding i am taking the reigns once more and fortunately to god effect it seems. So at least we have lots being worked on and done. Of course the nitty gritty i am doing could easily be described as the grunt work, the stuff that all games need, so i am designing nothing. But you would be amazed how much of this small stuff there is, and the small stuff that newer programmers just do not know. Luckily i guess i am old and wise, lol! Now that's funny!
Have a good'un