Shocked my (lovely and a lot more junior than myself) trainee today by casually explaining that guy who he thought was super senior is actually a peer of mine.

I suspect this is a gender / age / appearance / ego thing: guy in question is a large man in his late 50s. I'm a petite blonde almost 20 years younger. And I'm quite approachable as a lead.

Am I wrong?

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I get this all the time - I don't take it personally unless the person is rude about it. The other people at my level on my team are all dudes who are between 5 and 25 years older than me.

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It’s lame but this is why I love my damn title so much. (I’m a petite, hyper friendly, bouncy-voiced, young-faced, 35 y/o lead)

Personally I love dropping a, “Oh yeah we’ve worked together a while. Such a fun dude. He always steals my strategy slides. But I do learn from him, too 😘”

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Everyone has a different path and may not have grown up in consulting. For example - those that served in the military or had a career change. Your “peer” may be 20 yrs older, but probably has a lot of knowledge and diverse experience in other places.

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I would take the opportunity to have a conversation with him about this.

"you said that you thought that Bob was more senior than me, what made you think that?" Then essentially coach him that it's a really good lesson to learn now that the most senior person does not always look the way that they imagine. Then, tell an anecdote ( there are tons of them on the internet) where a guy mistook a regional manager for the secretary and asked her to get coffee. Let him know this happens more than you think, and it's something to always be aware of.

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Trainee is, luckily, very smart and has actually figured this out himself:

He knew I was a senior manager - but he assumed "Bob" must be a Senior Managing Director.

When I pointed out Bob was actually the same level of seniority as myself, trainee, after thinking for a second, said:

"Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense! I must have been thinking that because of how Bob presents (he's not wrong, Bob is extremely confident and sort of projects an "old school boss image) and because of, let's be honest, unconscious bias."

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