I also feel that once a dev team becomes of a certain size, they become simply too big to deliver a unified vision for the game. Game devs seems like a such a voliatile production process, that it must take a lot of effort and understanding on what other teams are working on to keep the whole thing coherent.
This is when a solid director becomes important. Someone who's able to keep things unified and coherent (But still allows the teams to flourish and produce good content).
An example is Naoko Yoshida, who has a passion for the projects he works on so he is able to keep everyone on the same page and working well.
Unlike most directors who seemingly only exist to enforce executives requests for more BS monetization and awful game design parameters...
The notion of having a solid leader is simply part of the human condition. Eventually when a group of people gets large enough, a leader is required to keep things in order. This is true in all aspects of life, not just game development.
Of course, the issue we often face is the people who get into such positions of leadership, are often the least qualified for the position...
