That entire post was great but in particular this. I always thought honcho was a Spanish word.
It depends though. Where I lived (and regularly visit) they are called the 会長 ( Kaichō) which is the word for president or chairperson. I most commonly heard the the word 班長 (Hanchō) which means group or team leader in relation to usually the most senior student who was in charge of leading neighborhood kids as they walked to school. Hanchō is used in military contexts as well, which is where the US likely got it during WWII.
//i\\
Edited to add, I never had to be the Kaichō, because I did not own the house we lived in, but I always participated in the annual cleaning that we did, and of course, the meal afterward at the small community center (just a small structure with a large room a kitchen and a bathroom).
From Merriam Webster
A relic of the large U.S. presence in Japan in the years following World War II, the word honcho comes from the Japanese word hanchō meaning “leader of the squad, section, group.” We are uncertain of the exact route by which honcho found its way into American military argot in the mid-1950s, though it is known that the Japanese applied hanchō to British or Australian officers in charge of work parties in prisoner-of-war camps. By the 1960s, the word had become part of colloquial American jargon.
And incidentally, “head honcho” isn’t used in Japanese. 班長 are group leaders “head” got tacked on when the word was adopted into English.
As I said, this is when there are smaller groups within an association. The subgroups are 班 han with a 班長 and the larger association is the 会 kai, with a 会長.
Thus a large 自治会 neighborhood association that has 班 subgroups will have one 会長 president / chairman and a number of 班長 hancho.
I lived in a large 団地 apartment complex with maybe eight multistory buildings. Each floor of each building was a 班, so there were 24 班. One 会長 and 24 班長.
If an association is smaller (as most are) then it’s not divided into groups and they will just have the 会長.