#2nd Most highest salary using Limit & Order By
SELECT Salary FROM (SELECT Salary FROM Employee ORDER BY salary DESC LIMIT 2) AS Emp ORDER BY salary LIMIT 1;
Both options you find max as a subset and then exclude from main select
sql> SELECT MAX( col ) FROM table
WHERE col < ( SELECT MAX( col ) FROM table);
sql> SELECT MAX(col) FROM table
WHERE col NOT IN (SELECT MAX(col) FROM table);