Communication should not be stifled by overcontrolling management or by resentful staff. An agile organization offers many avenues of communication. Line staff must have ways to bring issues to management's attention, and managers must promulgate decisions without delay to all staff. Nothing harms the esprit de corps of an organization quicker, or with worse effect, than regularly hearing about an internal decision from an external source. Similarly, management should not have to discover front-line problems from customers.
Leadership can come from anyone, at any level of an organization.
In fact, those at the top are sometimes not close enough to the ground to see what's coming. For example, look at what happened at Microsoft. Bill Gates did not understand the Internet and the impact it would have on his company. It took an employee to make him see the light, but when he did, he turned the company around on a dime. Librarians are better consensus builders than leaders.