I'm sure you "show respect" to everyone in your company, Becky, regardless of their status, but Senior VPs may require a little special handling. If they're men, then just treat them very kindly - as you would a small child who doesn't know whether he wants vanilla, pistachio or chocolate icecream, or any combination of those three or all three at once. It worked with my last boss.
It is a frustrating situation, and sometimes bossies seem to forget that their assistants have a hefty workload, but you might be able to progress this if you developed your own strategy for handling such conversations are you mention. A mental checklist might help which would enable you to, very subtly, take charge of the conversation. If you go through the "checklist" and ask questions (suggested date of meeting, time and length, location, refreshments, topic(s) for discussion, delegates, proposed outcomes etc etc). That sort of approach generally gets people to focus reasonably well.
