I'm glad you brought this up, even though I disagree with your analysis. In my experience, in the power vacuum there are several types of people: 1. Those who

I'm glad you brought this up, even though I disagree with your analysis. In my experience, in the power vacuum there are several types of people: 1. Those who are blind to it 2. Those who want power and have charisma 3. Those who want power and lack charisma 4. Those who do not want the responsibility that comes with the power, but take it to save the team 5. Those who do not want the responsibility and explicitly avoid it The problem is that those five categorizations are independent of competence, in terms of technical skills but especially in terms of leadership skills. So if you do this sort of social experiment, what you get are people who want power regardless of competence. Now if that's what you're looking for, then by all means, do it, but I'd bet that you're actually hoping to find the capable ones, not the power seeking ones. I don't have a good answer for how to set up a self-sustaining organization that consistently surfaces excellent leaders, because I've never seen one, but I'm pretty sure the power vacuum won't do better.