Leadership is about clarifying goals.

Leadership is not just summarizing the bottom-up beliefs of all of the constituents and doing the average.

That average, consensus view of various plausibly viable options might not even be a viable option itself.

The bottom-up insights provide ground-truthing, a set of constraints to operate within and balance.

The same is true for setting a product vision and UXR; UXR doesn't tell you what to do, it tells you the constraints of what's viable.