She was a great leader. She recognized that our team was cohesive and could make a better decision than she could. She was one of the best managers I ever had.
The reports were all good friends, she knew that, and gave them the option for her to decide or them. She apparently didn't know the personal lives of the reports as well as they did themselves.
I guess it might be attributable to how much managers consider themselves to be, or actually are (subject to org limits), a part of the team, vs just managing it
Context and relationships matter. Apparently this manager had a relationship with her reports where that would work. It's obviously not going to work in nearly any other situation, but kudos to her for figuring out what would work in this situation.
Bottom line is that all of the reports involved were reasonably ok with the outcome--no one is ever happy about getting laid off--and that is far better than the situation in most layoffs.