Newcomers "often don't understand how badly we need you to lead the way," he says. "If this is an area of concern to you," he admonishes, "the way the Tea Party Patriots works is that you guys really lead the organization. We're a relatively small group of people who are just trying to help coordinate. We're not in charge; we're not telling anybody what to do. You need to take a leadership role and stand up." From "How the Tea Party Organizes without Leaders"
Jonathan Rauch over at the National Journal has written an excellent article on the organization of the Tea Party. As my friend Reihan Salam points out, this article is in a very similar vein to an article I wrote earlier this year on the Tea Party as an open (source) insurgency that formed due to the loss of sovereign legitimacy caused by the financial bail-outs. There's too much goodness in Jonathan's article to quote, so I strongly recommend that you read it in full.
NOTE: I thought it was interesting, that many in the Tea Party leadership are using the business book, "The Starfish and the Spider" as an organizational bible (it does a great job of explaining the basics of open source organizations). That makes sense, since this movement has modest goals and is operating within a low threat environment.