[aahortwwy]

Not all places do this; the place I currently work only rewards leaders for "impact" and people have the option of whether to take on leadership responsibilities.

Places that reward non-leaders for impact are doing so intentionally to encourage people to self-organize into teams that produce the most value for the business. The theory being that the people on the ground often have a clearer view of whether value is being created than the various layers of middle management do. If you work in a place like this it's actually part of your job to stay plugged in to the business side and determine whether you're working on something valuable or not.