McFarlane, who holds a UEFA A Licence but not a Pro Licence, was asked directly at his Cobham press conference on Friday whether the absence of the higher qualification undermined his authority.
"What badges?" he replied, before acknowledging the gap. "I don't have a Pro Licence. It didn't make a difference last time and I have got the lads' respect and we are ready to attack the game against Leeds and put in the best performance we possibly can."
The Premier League allows an interim manager to operate without a Pro Licence for up to 12 weeks, with exceptions available if the coach is enrolled in the qualification course or sidelined for medical reasons.
McFarlane also addressed the ongoing problem of team selections leaking before games, after Marc Cucurella's barber was found to have disclosed details of the starting lineup ahead of the Brighton match.
"It's been addressed. It's been addressed previously. It's something that we are looking into and it needs to stop. We've spoken to them about the importance of that and making sure it doesn't happen again."
He was careful not to allocate blame individually but made clear the responsibility is collective.
"Everyone at the club has to feel responsible for the Brighton performance — staff and players. We know the recent form has not been good enough and we're going to do absolutely everything we can to make sure we can put in a good performance on Sunday."
On the prospect of ending a difficult run of form with a positive result at Wembley: "A lot of football is about momentum and we obviously have had a bit of a losing streak. That can change with one positive result and one positive performance."
A section within Chelsea's management is understood to hold the view that managers have less influence on results than is commonly assumed. That philosophy was not tested kindly by the Rosenior experience. McFarlane now has one game to begin building a different story.