the.com/figurehead

means A person who holds a title of leadership or authority but exercises little or no real power, serving mainly as a symbol or front.

from Literally the carved wooden figure — often a woman, a lion, a mythical beast — mounted on a ship's bow beneath the bowsprit. It looked fierce and commanding, gazing forward over the waves, but it never touched the rudder or steered the vessel an inch. By the 1800s English speakers had lifted the word ashore to describe leaders of the same sort: decorative, prominent, powerless.