That’s what I always took it to mean.
And as a follow up to that, I have always felt that the Borg Queen did not exist before the Borg defeat. It was always stated that the Borg adapt to threats (like the shields becoming ineffective after a while). The Borg had always been able to win with their unified hive mind and no specific leader, but when they lost to a hierarchical command structure, they decided they needed to add a form of that distinctiveness to their collective. That was their adaptation to the new threat.
The Borg Queen was the Borg’s own version of the ‘best of both worlds’. A being that is both part of the hive, and also an individual.
Plus, if Picard attempted to relate to her as an individual, so much better for the Borg. Having a ‘queen’ could fool humans into thinking of them like individuals. That the humans think that the Borg have a ‘leader’ is a mistake could be exploited by a clever plan.