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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 III. Good Evening

You made it. Or did you?

It happened. You now know. It’s not an alleged disaster; it’s a confirmed catastrophe. And it’s your fault. You made what you thought was an irrelevant decision six months ago. The decision came and went, and you didn’t give it half a thought, and it is the root cause of your current predicament.

You probably won’t sleep well tonight. Sorry.

What happened was likely unexpected, had a large blast radius, and raised alarms in some or all of the team. Since your job is to predict the unpredictable, everyone is looking straight at you. “Hey, leadership person—why didn’t you predict this improbable situation and handle it before it occurred?”

Read that last sentence again. Your team members meant every single word. That is the gig: it’s not firefighting, it’s fire prevention.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781098162924Errata Page