What I like about this question is that you have effectively separated the issue of leadership from the issue of authority. I think that helps a lot :)

What I observe outside the walls of the institutional church.. and to a lesser extent inside it.. is that we tend to give authority to people in two ways.. 1. formal and positional, and 2. informal and relational. In the first instance we recognize that someone operating with a certain title has authority. He or she already has the backing of a community to accomplish some kind of task, and real power goes with that position.

In the second case, we give authority to people who are functioning with a gift or anointing .. it may be pastoral, evangelistic, teaching.. whatever. These people just naturally serve from their gifting, and those around them naturally recognize taht service.

The interesting part is what develops around these different cases.. positional or relational/practical (and sometimes charismatic in the theological sense) authority. Around formal authority I generally observe followers.. around informal and relational authority I observe communities.

Granted, these are not really polar opposites but more of a continuum. I observe the result of a natural service and gifting in my own life. My wife and I seem to naturally gather people.. some of whom are mature believers, often visionary like ourselves.. others of whom are needy.. the poor, single moms, emotionally wounded. We have a fairly large network of both of these groups, and for a long time on every second Sunday we hosted a potluck meal to bring them together and to encourage one another. You could say that a church was born in this way.

I’ve written all this to get to your question.. “Who is in charge here?” In the first case above its pretty obvious, right? The guy with the title and the salary is in charge. He is also usually the voice heard 90% of the time. In the highly organized system everyone knows who is in charge because of the system itself.

In the second case, when we have new people come to our home on a Sunday, they may not know who is in charge.. In fact, we don’t think in those terms so it’s no surprise. They might assume the hosts are in charge.. but then when it comes time to gather to pray or share some Scripture, one of our friends may have something burning in their hearts.. and my wife and I might not contribute a word. They might leave thinking Nick is in charge, or Joan, or Kevin. And for that day, they would be almost right. In reality, we believe the Holy Spirit was in charge :)