Your manager is your advocate. Give them a case to make.
For when: you like your manager, but you are not sure what they say about you when you are not there.
Tilen Višnjevec · Finance director, Copenhagen · When your name comes up in the promotion meeting, your manager speaks for you. Think of them as your advocate in a court you can't attend. Most are willing. Few are prepared, because preparing takes time they don't have and material they don't keep.
I have watched good people lose a promotion because their manager said “she's great” and then went quiet when asked for specifics. The manager was not lazy and did not dislike them. They simply had nothing concrete in their head at that moment.
What a strong case contains
A case that lands has three parts. Evidence that you are already operating at the next level, in two or three specific examples with outcomes. A witness, meaning at least one person in the room or respected by it who has seen you work. And an answer to the obvious objection, before anyone raises it.
The last part matters more than people think. Every candidate has a weak spot, and the room will find it. If your manager can say “his written communication was a gap last year, so he took over the monthly board note and it has gone out on time with no rewrites since March”, the objection is closed before it opens.
How to hand it over
About two months before the decision, ask your manager for thirty minutes. Say that you would like to be considered, and that you want to make it easy for them to argue for you. Bring one page: the two or three examples, the people who saw them, and the weak spot with what you have done about it.
Do not ask “will you promote me?” Ask “what would make this case stronger?” The first question puts them on the spot. The second makes them your co-author, and people fight harder for a case they helped write.
What weakens a case
Vague praise. A list of tasks instead of outcomes. Any hint that you think you are owed it. And comparing yourself to a colleague, which turns your case into an attack on theirs and makes the room defensive on their behalf.
What to do this week
Write the one-pager. Three examples with outcomes, the witnesses, the weak spot and the fix. Keep it to one page or it will not be read.
Book the thirty minutes. Two months before the decision, not two weeks.
Ask the second question. “What would make this stronger?” Then do what they say, and tell them when it is done.
Before one review round, I sent my manager a single page with three results and what each one changed. In the meeting, they used it almost word for word. The rounds where I didn't do that went slower.
An advocate with no evidence loses. Bring the evidence.