Nobody handed you the clipboard? Good. Now they’ll follow you for reasons that can’t be taken back.

Authority that comes with a title can be withdrawn by whoever granted it. Authority that comes from what people have watched you do belongs to you, because it lives in their judgment rather than on a list. Being passed over is a setback and also a strange kind of freedom: nothing about how you act now is owed to a position.

Keep doing the work as though the role were yours, and let people draw their own conclusions. Do not narrate the injustice. A year of steady behavior says more than any appointment would have.