The assistant problem: what it costs over 20 years, and the 10-second correction
In the 2025 Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn, female leaders were reported mistaken for a lower-ranking employee at twice the rate of their male counterparts. Picture yourself, a vice president in Greensboro, being handed the minutes pad or asked to sort out the room booking when your title clearly says otherwise, and you already know the experience firsthand.
The striking part of the number is not the occurrence itself. Plenty of women across the Triad, from Greensboro to High Point, could tell you a version of this story. The study tracked this at the leadership tier, where women had already passed every hurdle their company had put in front of them. Seniority does not shield anyone from this misreading. It follows you upward. A director is taken for the admin who books the conference rooms. An executive at the top of the org chart is asked to hang up the coats. The cue people are picking up on is not the title printed on your badge. It is you.
Where the figure actually comes from
Since 2015, McKinsey and LeanIn have jointly run Women in the Workplace, a yearly survey of American corporations that asks both the employers and the people who work for them to respond. Its 2025 round posed questions about the ordinary moments of working life, and being taken for someone junior appears among them, with women naming it at double the frequency men did. Because the answers come from memory and self-report, the data reflects what people registered and recalled rather than an exact count of every incident. The survey also leaves open who made the mistake and what drove it. Still, the findings reveal a recurring trend, frequent enough to show up across a whole national sample, which means you are far from alone in facing it.
How it shows up
Picture a quarterly review at a manufacturing or health care firm somewhere along the I-40 corridor. In Greensboro, as the senior vice president, you are the one accountable for the figure displayed on the screen. A recently seated board member walks in ahead of schedule, takes in the room, and wonders aloud if "the SVP" is on her way. Smiling, you tell him she is already sitting at the table. Embarrassed for a moment, he regains his footing, yet for the remainder of the session he treats you with a stiff caution that carries a cost of its own. There was no hostility behind that slip. The room simply fell back on its habitual assumption that a senior person would look like somebody other than you.
What this means for your position
Consider it the assistant trap. Every episode like this eats roughly ten seconds and a brief jolt to your poise. The cumulative cost is different. As a rough illustration, one such lapse a month over a two-decade career adds up to around 240 occasions when a stranger's initial impression of you had to be set right before any substantive exchange could take place. Those opening impressions matter, because that is where trust tends to be assigned its value. The real issue is not that you seem junior. Rather, the room's mental image of "senior" was formed by observing who has traditionally occupied the role.
What to do next
Each time, correct it in ten seconds, let it go, and keep your composure. When you have the chance, head it off in advance: "Just so you know, I'm the regional SVP." You'll be presenting to me this afternoon." If that moment has already passed, fix it as calmly as you would a wrong date on a slide: "Actually, I'm the SVP." Shall we begin?" No punchline, no apology, no dwelling on it. You are correcting a mistaken fact, and the quickest correction is the one that works best.
Greensboro's own women leaders have built networks for exactly this kind of moment, from the Women In Networking chapters to the Women's Business Center of The Triad at Bennett College, where peers trade the scripts that work. If you have not yet found your group, that is a good place to start.
Think about the fix you have made most often, and how many months passed before you quit apologizing for needing to make it.