A Senior Manager told me recently that promotions at her company felt completely unpredictable.

One year a peer advanced quickly.
Another year someone with similar results was passed over.

Sometimes leadership talked about performance.
Other times the conversation focused on “leadership presence” or “readiness.”

From her perspective, the criteria kept changing.

Her question was simple.

“How do people actually get promoted around here?”

At the Director and VP level, this is one of the most common frustrations I hear.

Promotion decisions don’t feel transparent.
Not necessarily unfair.
But difficult to decode.

The uncomfortable truth is that promotion systems inside organizations are rarely written down in a way employees can clearly follow.

There may be competency models or leadership frameworks.

But the real promotion criteria tend to live somewhere else.

In leadership conversations.

In promotion committees.

In how senior leaders interpret someone's readiness for broader scope.

When professionals cannot see those dynamics, advancement starts to feel random.

It usually isn't.

But the system is often invisible.

Why promotions feel unpredictable

Most organizations do not intentionally hide promotion criteria.

The opacity comes from how decisions are actually made.

At the Director and VP level, promotions are rarely about output alone.

Several dynamics contribute to this.

The criteria are rarely fully documented

Companies often define promotion requirements in general terms.

Leadership potential.

Strategic thinking.

Executive presence.

But those concepts leave room for interpretation.

Two leaders might evaluate the same person differently depending on how they experience that individual in meetings or decision discussions.

Promotion decisions happen in rooms you are not in

Senior leaders frequently discuss potential promotions collectively.

They compare candidates.

They reference examples of leadership behavior.

They debate readiness.

If no one is actively describing your contributions in those conversations, your work doesn’t show up in the conversation.

This is why some strong performers feel invisible during promotion cycles.

Advancement is partly about perception

When promotion criteria remain unclear, most professionals default to the most obvious strategy.

They work harder.
They deliver more.
They assume stronger performance will eventually trigger advancement.

Sometimes it does.

But often it reinforces a reputation for reliability at the current level.

Meanwhile, someone else is more deliberate about how they show up.

They take ownership of ambiguous problems.
They speak in terms of trade-offs.
They influence how decisions get made.

Over a 3–5 year window, that gap compounds.

One person moves into Director or VP scope.
The other stays where they are.

That difference is rarely about capability.

But it often shows up as a six-figure difference in compensation and trajectory over time.

A quick promotion clarity check

Many professionals have never explicitly tested how clear their promotion path actually is.

If you want to quickly gauge where you stand, three questions can help.

1. Can you clearly describe what would need to change for you to be promoted?

Not general statements like “continue performing well.”

Specific signals leadership would need to see.

Expanded scope.

Ownership of certain initiatives.

Evidence of strategic leadership.

If the criteria remain vague, positioning becomes difficult.

2. Have you had a direct promotion conversation in the last six months?

Not a casual mention.

A specific discussion about readiness and expectations.

Without this conversation, professionals often operate on assumptions about what leadership wants to see.

Those assumptions are sometimes wrong.

3. Is someone advocating for you in leadership conversations?

Promotion discussions often occur in rooms you do not attend.

Which means someone else's voice may represent your work.

If no one is actively connecting your impact to promotion readiness, the decision conversation may unfold without your perspective present.

Check your promotion clarity

Most professionals never actually test how clear their promotion path is.

This takes 2 minutes and will show you exactly where you stand.

Promotions rarely feel random from the inside

One of the interesting things about promotion committees is that decisions usually feel logical to the leaders involved.

They have seen how individuals contribute in strategic conversations.

They have watched how people handle ambiguity or difficult trade-offs.

They have formed impressions over time.

From the outside, the process looks opaque.

From the inside, it often feels obvious.

The gap between those two perspectives is where most promotion frustration lives.

Once professionals begin to understand how leadership evaluates readiness, the path becomes easier to navigate.

Not effortless.

But far less mysterious.

If promotions currently feel unpredictable in your organization, it may be worth asking a different question.

Not “Why didn’t this happen?”

But:

“What would leadership need to see to believe I’m already operating at the next level?”

That question changes how you approach your role.

Instead of waiting for recognition, you start shaping how your work is experienced.

If you’re not sure how clear your promotion path actually is, reply and tell me what is unclear.

I’ll help you pressure test it.

These conversations come up constantly with senior professionals across tech, consulting and corporate leadership roles.

More often than not, the issue isn’t capability.

It’s that the system hasn’t been made visible yet.

Until next week,
Beckie