This is a bit of a tangent to your comment, but I still kinda wanted to point it out. In chimpanzee cultures, the "alpha males" are rarely the strongest or mos

This is a bit of a tangent to your comment, but I still kinda wanted to point it out. In chimpanzee cultures, the "alpha males" are rarely the strongest or most violent ones. It's usually the most charismatic chimps that get along with the most other members of the group and have their support. Usually the approval of the elders plays a big role. In some of the Northeast woodland cultures talked about in the book they had similar leadership models based on charisma. Charisma here doesn't really mean just having a way with words (though it does also mean that). It means being able to understand the needs of all the members and having their approval Whether or not you wanna call this "hierarchy without coercion" is mostly a matter of semantics and what you ultimately define as "hierarchy". But I think a key difference to point out is that these positions of leadership don't really hold any permanent power. They have a lot of influence, but that influence can be taken away as easily as it's given to them