May I ask you a question? In your environment, who creates the overall policies? Do the admins create the policies or just merely enforce them?
Our environment is a unique one. I work in a private k-8 school that is also a part of a Congregation. There are three members of the IT Staff (IT director, IT manager, Sys. Admin/Net. Admin - that's me). The IT director is responsible for merging technology into the curriculum and is not as technically savvy as myself and the IT manager. The IT manager has worked here for 20 some years and knows the environment very well (although is very technically savvy his education is Accounting and his experience mostly Novell (server/authentication). I've been working here about 3 years and have a wider range of technical knowledge (bachelors in Business Info Systems - minor in econ - with experience in coding/win and Linux network environments..etc....finishing masters in Advanced info systems. To get to the point… since we have such a mix of knowledge and experience (and responsibilities) we collectively make decisions and usually I (or the IT Manager) implement them.

Hope that answers you question...sorry for the rambling...