Without wishing to get into politics, it is a fallacy that we live in a (pure or direct) democratic system.
In a true democracy, power is held by the people. In our case, power is held in the elected representatives of the people, so it's more of an indirect or representative democracy, with roots in the Roman Republic.
Because the UK is a constitutional monarchy, people feel more comfortable describing our system as such, but in reality the monarch has no "real" power, this aligns our system closer to that of a Republic.
So in reality we are a republic, although most would not like to think of it as such.
As an aside, some of the most successful countries are governed by "friendly dictatorship" under the guise of indirect democracy, e.g.: Singapore
So yes, in a rabble rousing membership such as ASN, guidance is best given as friendly dictatorship, rather than rabble rousing democracy. Because you won't please all of the people all of the time.