How important is a Leader?

The group I raid with is full of very knowledgeable, intelligent, great players. When we first started raiding we started with the opinion that we really didn't need a raid leader. It was only a ten man, and over half of our group had done raid leading for the guild before, so we just kind of thought that we would all be okay with watching our own timers, and I guess just assumed someone would make the decision whether to, for example, release that fifth drake on Halfus. We were kind-of right. For the most part our progression hasn't been hindered by our trust in each other to take care of their own things, however we have been very lucky in the fact that we seem to have all fallen into our own roles on what specifically we each do for each fight. I have to some extent been working on the strategies before the fights. I really like watching boss kill videos, and trying to pick out all the little things guilds are doing to succeed and where they could improve. Bazain has been great with calling out timers a head of time, and yelling at people to get their heads out of their...respective places.... when we've been goofing off too much. Green is just an overall loudmouth that fills in where someone is needed. Pixelated has a very strong personality in that he will call ideas out in the middle of the raid, or yell that something isnt' going to work, he's great at adjusting on the fly and communicating that to us. And of course everyone helps out between wipes on helping to adjust our strategy, explain what went wrong from each other's perspectives, and step up when we need an extra set of eyes or one of our usual people has to tunnel something so hard they can't pay attention to a specific mechanic. Having said all that, the focus of this post wasn't really on OUR situation, but on where I see a break down.

We are trying to get a second raid group off the ground (again...) and we've been having some issues. When we started our 10man we did end up taking a lot of the past raid leaders and throwing them all into one group. It wasn't really done intentionally, it just happens that we were all pretty good friends, and so the list of who we wanted to raid with just happened to include them all. However we had a few people step up and try to take over starting a second group, and when they gave up, someone else, and so forth. We are stuck in the unfortunate situation right now of having someone that has stepped into that role that doesn't really want to be in the situation. He's done a great job mind you. The second group has downed some bosses, and put in some wipes for progression. He's constantly willing to learn from further progressed guildies, unfortunately to a fault. Where his issues seem to be is a lack of confidence. Instead of picking a strategy and sticking with it (with the few adjustments) he's too worried about doing it "wrong" and when a few of our raiders have stepped in to fill gaps with alts, he's been too ready to ask for them to tell him how to do a fight, confusing his raiders when the strategies differ greatly. This seems to be the issue all around, lack of confidence. Lack of confidence to call people out when they screw up, to sit someone for not showing up the week before without any notice, and even seeming reluctant to recruit to replace people that are running with him that aren't part of our guild (and not willing to change guilds). So how important is a leader? A person willing to make the hard decisions even if it means hurting some feelings? In a word: Critical.

(If you do read this Other Group Leader. It's really not intended to offend in anyway, sometimes I should probably keep my opinions to myself!)