While there are certainly strengths to the democratic method of leadership— fairness, for example, or morale—it also has its weaknesses.

Manager patience is, as mentioned in your inquiry, an issue. Often, people trained in management are trained to take the lead and make decisions on behalf of the group, and adjusting to a more receptive mindset can be frustrating and difficult. This can be especially true if the manager's leadership methods are changing in real time on the job, rather than an organization changing their approach through personnel turnover.

In a situation where there is a clear and necessary professional authority, democratic leadership might also just not be appropriate. A helpful analogy to consider here might be a hospital system. Health is a hospital's one singular goal, but that goal takes many roles to achieve: doctors, nurses, administrative workers, medical coders, custodial staff, cafeteria workers, et cetera. Each of these roles is incredibly important to the functioning of this system, and each deserves to be treated thoughtfully and valued by all other parties involved. But they also all exist within that system entirely to support of the care of patients, which creates a natural organizational hierarchy. If a hospital director attempted to lead the hospital as a pure democracy, ascribing equal institutional power to each of these groups, it would be much more difficult to maintain that critical focus.

Another possible complication with democratic leadership is that it's often imperfectly employed. A system might, for example, assume itself to be a "pure" democracy because it allows all members of the group the opportunity to speak when it convenes for decision-making. Often, however, people bring learned behaviors with them that inhibit their contribution when challenged by louder or more established voices.

If everybody in the group has exactly the same level of social confidence, an identical knowledge level, and an equitable understanding of the proceedings, a true democratic method of leadership may be possible. But in a group with diverse backgrounds or experience levels, socialized under a variety of different conditions, this can be incredibly difficult to achieve. If someone's background is an environment where they're discouraged from sharing their thoughts openly, for example, they may opt to keep quiet in a group setting even when the proverbial floor is open for democratic discourse.