If you need to remind everyone you’re in charge, you’ve already lost some of the room.

Authority that is working does not need announcing, because people are already acting on it. Reaching for the reminder usually means something else has gone wrong, and the reminder confirms to everybody that it has. It also moves the conversation off the task and onto your standing, which is the one subject you cannot win. The urge to say it is worth treating as information.

If you catch yourself about to invoke your position, stop and ask what is actually not happening. Deal with that specific thing instead. Fix the reason people stopped following rather than insisting that they should.