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, women leaders reported being mistaken for a junior employee at double the rate of men. If you have been asked to take notes, grab the coffee or confirm a conference room booking while holding a title with "vice president" in it, you are part of the evidence.
The sting of this statistic comes less from the fact that it happens than from how often it does. Plenty of women in Las Vegas and across Southern Nevada have their own version of the story. It is that the study measured the problem among leaders, women who had already cleared every hurdle their organization set. The error does not fade as you rise. It keeps pace with you. Picture a director in Henderson being assumed to be the event coordinator. A C-suite executive gets handed a stack of programs at a banquet. What the people in the room register is not the title on your badge. It is you.
Where the figure originates
Since 2015, McKinsey and LeanIn have jointly produced Women in the Workplace, a yearly survey of American corporations that gathers answers from both the businesses and the staff who work in them. Among the everyday experiences the 2025 edition explored with leaders is being taken for someone in a lower role, which women said happened to them twice as often as to men. Because the findings come from people describing their own experiences, they reflect what stuck in memory rather than an exact count of each occurrence. The research does not identify the person who made the error or explain their reasoning. Its real value is showing that this is a recurring trend, widespread enough to surface in a nationwide study, rather than an isolated incident affecting only you.
How it appears
Picture a quarterly review at a resort-sized operation on the Strip, or at a healthcare or government office in Henderson or North Las Vegas. Here in Summerlin, you are the senior vice president responsible for the figure on the slide. Before the meeting starts, a newly appointed board member walks in early, looks around Whitney's conference room, and wonders aloud when the SVP will show up. Gently, as you speak across the table from him in Summerlin, you mention that she was in fact sitting there the whole time. He flushes for a moment, then regains his footing, and spends the remainder of the session treating you with an awkward level of caution, a reaction that has its own drawbacks. There was no hostility in the error at all. It simply reflected the room's habitual assumption that the most senior person could not possibly be a woman.
What it signifies for your daily life
Think of it as the helper dilemma. Every such moment takes roughly ten seconds from you and leaves a brief dent in your poise. The cumulative cost is different. For example, if it occurs once a month over a twenty-year career in a place like Boulder City, you would have corrected a stranger's first impression about 240 times before any substantive discussion could begin. Initial impressions are the moment when credibility is first assigned a value. The difficulty does not lie in appearing junior. It lies in the fact that the room's sense of what a senior leader looks like was shaped by who has historically held the role.
Next steps
Each time, correct it quickly and calmly, then return to the work without any visible frustration. When you have the chance, state it upfront before the confusion arises: "I'm the regional SVP. You're presenting to me today." If the moment has already passed, address it as casually as you would correct a wrong date on a document: "Actually, I'm the SVP. Shall we begin?" Keep it light, skip the joke and the apology, and do not dwell on it. You are simply fixing an inaccurate fact, and the quickest correction is the one that works best.
Which fix do you end up repeating most often in Henderson or Paradise, and how long did it take before you could make it without an apology?