Pharaoh's grant of power to Joseph sounds almost absurd when read slowly. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 41:44 renders it: "without thy word a man shall not lift up his hand to gird on arms, or his foot to mount a horse in all the land of Mizraim."
Total military authority, total civilian authority
The two verbs are carefully chosen. Girding on arms is the action of a soldier. Mounting a horse is the action of a courier or a nobleman. The Aramaic paraphrase, which reached its final form in the Land of Israel around the seventh or eighth century CE, is saying that both the war machine and the civil service of Egypt answered to Joseph's voice. No one drew a sword without his approval. No one rode out on royal business without his authorization. Pharaoh kept the throne; Joseph held everything attached to it.
Why the Torah is this extreme
The rabbinic tradition reads this not as Egyptian absolutism but as divine providence at work. Joseph needed this level of authority because the famine would require decisions — about grain, travel, borders, and eventually the arrival of his own family — that only a single unchallenged executive could make fast enough. The Torah gives him the power because the crisis would demand it.
The takeaway
Providence sometimes arranges authority before we can see the emergency that will require it. Joseph's total command looked like a reward; it was also a preparation.