Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are fundamentally different from wired networks. They are autonomously formed with a collection of mobile nodes without any preexisting infrastructure or administrative support. In the last few years, Policy-Based Network Management (PBNM) has gained a considerable interest in order to reach adaptive and automated management goals in MANETs. Previous work in this field either cluster-based or hierarchical architectures are highly dependent of the network topology. A distributed approach with a high degree of autonomy and self-management is still lacking. In this paper, we give an overview of existing policy-based management solutions and we focus on some of their limitations. We outline the need of incorporating self-configuration property in the design of MANETs. Then, we present a new protocol for distributing policies and high-level goals over all nodes in the network. Simulation-based performance evaluation results are described and analyzed.