> **The question:** I was promoted to Head of Product, but decisions still route around me.
> Old habits haven't changed, and people still go to the same informal power centers they did before.
> On paper I have the title; in practice I don't feel like I have the mandate.
> How do I turn the title into real authority without picking unnecessary fights?
>
> *(a Newly-promoted Head of Product at a health-tech scaleup)*


A title is permission to lead. Authority is earned and granted separately. The gap you are feeling is the most common trap of a new senior role, and it will not close on its own. You have to close it deliberately, on two fronts.

**Get the mandate made explicit (top-down).** Sit with your manager and clarify, out loud: what decisions are mine, what is my budget and scope, and how will that be communicated to the org? Ambiguity here is what lets decisions route around you. Ask them to announce the remit, not just grant it privately.

**Earn it on the ground (bottom-up):**

- **Take a real decision early** and own the outcome. Nothing establishes authority like visibly making a hard call well.
- **Redirect the routing politely but consistently.** When decisions go around you, pull them back: "Let's make sure that comes through product." Every time, calmly.
- **Win key relationships,** especially the peers and old guard whose deference signals to everyone else.

Move in the first few months while you have newness on your side. Authority left too long tends to calcify into a permanent gap.