THE

INSDER

STRATEGY

Jacqueline V. Twillie, MBA

What a VP's Day Actually Looks Like (And What No One Tells You)

Hey y'all,

A few months ago I asked what content you wanted more of in this newsletter. Twenty-one percent of you said the same thing: show us what executive roles actually look like from the inside. Not the LinkedIn version. The real one.

So that's what this edition is.

I want to talk about what a VP's day actually looks like, because most people are preparing for a title when they should be preparing for a pace. The Harvard Business School study that tracked 27 CEOs across 60,000 hours found that executives work an average of 62.5 hours a week, with 72% of that time in meetings. They advance their own priorities only 43% of the time. And 79% of those executives were conducting business on weekend days and 70% on vacation days. That is not a work-life balance problem. That is the nature of the role.

Pre-Morning

Before most people's alarms go off, a VP is already moving. Fortune 500 leader data shows the average executive wakes around 6:15 a.m., but the more accurate picture is that the day starts when the phone does. Messages from other time zones, overnight reports, escalations that came in at 2 a.m. from a team in a different region. The pre-morning is not optional quiet time. For most VPs, it is triage.

What separates the ones who sustain this from the ones who burn out in the first eighteen months is whether they've built any intentional buffer before the calendar takes over. The executives who last protect something in that first hour, whether it's physical movement, reflection, or just thirty minutes where they are not reacting to anything. That is not a wellness tip. That is a performance strategy.

First Part of the Day

By the time the workday formally starts, a VP has usually already made two or three decisions. The Harvard research found that about 75% of executive time is already scheduled in advance. The first part of the day tends to be the most meeting-dense. Think:

This is where intention has to be built into the calendar before anyone else can fill it. Many senior leaders refuse to take meetings before 10 a.m. precisely because they need the first window of the day for thinking, not responding. The ones who skip this step spend their entire day in reaction mode and wonder at the end of the week why nothing moved forward on the things that actually mattered.

Midday

Here's what most people get wrong about a VP's calendar: they picture wall-to-wall meetings from morning to night. That happens sometimes, but the leaders who are actually effective have learned to treat midday like it belongs to them. Dan Amos, CEO of Aflac, has said the window between noon and 4 p.m. is his slowest for calls, and he uses it on purpose for the work that requires real thought. That's not accidental. That's a choice he made about what the job actually needs from him.

Latter Part of the Workday

By late afternoon, you're not just managing work anymore. You're managing the ripple effects of every decision you made before lunch. This is when the day gets heavy in ways nobody warns you about:

Nobody puts that in the job description. The grit required at this level is not the dramatic kind. It's showing up the same way on Wednesday as you did on Monday, no matter what Tuesday brought.

Evening Routine

Ken Chenault served as CEO of American Express for nearly two decades and became one of the most respected executives in the country. He had a simple practice he kept every single night. Before leaving the office, he wrote down three things he wanted to accomplish the next day. Not a to-do list. Three things. That discipline is what allowed him to close out the day with clarity instead of carrying the weight of everything unfinished into the next morning.

Most VP evenings are not dramatically different from the evening of a high-performing Director or Senior Manager. There's email. There's probably one more call. But the executives who build longevity into the role have learned to mark the end of the day with something that signals: I am done making decisions for now. Without it, the role expands to fill every hour available.

Understanding what the VP day actually requires is not meant to overwhelm you. It's meant to give you a head start. These habits don't appear after you get the title. You build them on the way there. Here's how to start:

Rooting for you,

Jacqueline

THE INSDER STRATEGY

Negotiation & Leadership Expert | Jacqueline V. Twillie, MBA

jacquelinetwillie.com  ·  LinkedIn