Skip to Content
A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader
book

A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

by Michael Lopp
November 2026
Beginner to intermediate
242 pages
5h 1m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from A Day in the Life of a Senior Leader

Part II. Good Afternoon

We started this day reviewing everything through the lens of what’s important to the team today. That set a tone for your meetings, prioritized your to-do list, and defined a set of trip wires that, if activated, will set you into deliberate, focused motion. Anything tripped yet? No? Wait for it.

Meanwhile, it’s time for lunch. And I am going to explain in excruciating detail why it’s important for you to stop and have lunch, and I’ll start by talking about Jason. Back at my first start-up, you could say Jason and I were competing. We both wanted our bosses’ jobs over the next five years.

We knew. When we met. We looked each other in the eye, squinted, and thought, “Who is going to get it first?”

Different leaders. Different approaches. I had a well-known humans-first policy, but he had deep technical knowledge and more tenure. I’d rank us equal in terms of political savviness—hence the staring—but I was sure I would win this pointless contest because…

I have lunch.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

The Art of Leadership

The Art of Leadership

Michael Lopp
Engineering Leadership: The Hard Parts

Engineering Leadership: The Hard Parts

Juan Pablo Buriticá, James Turnbull
The Goal

The Goal

Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781098162924Errata Page