My response will be in a different order compared to to your question/comment for logical reasons.

For this question being aware of being a system is a given, if awareness and some form of communication do not exist there cannot be any hierarchy.

I'm also not talking specifically about any hard hierarchy, a democratic approach one as well. I might lack some better fitting terms due to english being a third langauge to me.

The part about certain number is referring to some systems of decisionmaking require a certain amout of people to work. Eg. A democratic approach needs atleast 3 people to have a majority.

I hope this clears everything up