20 Years of Promotion Reviews. These Are the Six Questions That Actually Matter.
Why consistent performance isn't enough, and how to successfully sponsor your team's growth
“What do I need to do to get promoted?”
If you’re managing people, this is likely a familiar question from your team members.
Your gut reaction might be to pull up the competency matrix, check their recent launch metrics, and start building a business case. After all, they’ve been consistently delivering, and have more responsibility than some PMs already at the next level.
But for you - the sponsor of a potential promotion - there are broader considerations too.
Every potential promotion case (whether it leads to a promotion or not) has a ripple effect through an organisation.
By understanding the ecosystem of a promotion, and being intentional about how you handle promotions within it, you’ll reduce the guesswork for both you and your team members.
The questions below are inspired by my 20 years in product management, chairing and participating in promotion reviews in four organisations and a 100% success rate of securing promotions and job family transfers for my team members.
1. How well do I understand the principles for promotion at my company?
Promotion processes are usually documented - but interpretation and execution of the process will vary. The better you understand the nuance, the higher chance you have of knowing when and how to successfully present a promotion case.
Things to consider include:
How much strong performance is ‘enough’ to get a promotion? Is sustained next level work for 12 months required or can a shorter period of exceptional impact also qualify?
How soon after a ‘no promotion’ decision can someone be re-presented?
What can cause an automatic ‘no promotion’ decision? Will someone who hasn’t demonstrated any community contribution or met their annual in-office days be automatically rejected?
💡 Actionable Ideas
Document the unwritten: Read everything you can find about the process and try to fill the gaps. Write down what you think is true, even if it is not explicitly written in the HR handbook.
Validate your assumptions: Talk to peers and leaders who have been in and chair promotion reviews to understand the reality better.
2. What does supporting this promotion communicate about my leadership judgment?
Promotion processes can be a fantastic opportunity for managers to demonstrate their leadership skills.
Bringing a promotion case is a visible indicator to your team, your peers, and your executives of how you perceive excellence.
Get it right, and you show that you hold an intentional and high performance bar, can clearly articulate the value your team is creating, whilst actively championing your people.
💡 Actionable Ideas:
Define next-level excellence: Develop a strong perspective on what next-level performance looks like and communicate it consistently and clearly to your team. You can do this through your comms around promotions which do happen (see question 4) and by drawing attention to work and impact which is ‘good for level’ in development discussions, team meetings etc.Gather real-time evidence: Ensure your team members are consistently gathering evidence of their impact and collect feedback when the work happens and the observations are fresh - rather than waiting until ‘feedback season’. At the very worst, do it at the end of each quarter.
Leverage ‘ready soon’ forums and discussions: Some companies allow managers to present ‘ready soon’ cases at promotion reviews to get feedback on readiness. If yours doesn’t, then ensure you’re having routine conversations with your peers and executives about the skills and visibility of your team members. You might call a dedicated ‘team review’ calibration session or make conversations about your team members part of your regular chats with peers.
Embrace the friction: Get comfortable managing expectations and having the hard conversations early if someone clearly isn’t ready. Kim Scott’s Radical Candor blog and podcast offers great advice on how to have hard conversations including reseting team member expectations and how to avoid making empty promotion promises.
3. Have I validated their readiness with their cross-functional peers?
Whilst the promotion decision may be made by the product management job family, the cross-functional influence your PMs have is key to their success.
You can demonstrate your commitment to cross-functional partnerships too by making your cross functional partners part of the process.
This can also make it easier for you to share feedback about cross-functional team members in return.
💡 Actionable Ideas:
Map key relationships: Identify the critical cross-functional stakeholders (e.g., engineering, design, marketing, sales) for each candidate.
Articulate what good looks like: Share examples of good cross-functional relationships, forums, documentation etc.
Proactively gather qualitative input: Establish a regular cadence with cross-functional partners to review the candidate’s operational impact, collaborative health, and leadership presence before the formal cycle begins.
4. What signal will this promotion send to the rest of my team?
Every promotion sends a loud, public signal to three specific groups: those actively vying for advancement, those who aren’t quite there yet, and those already at the next level.
Consider what your promotions and rejected promotion bids send about skill, performance, impact and behavioural expectations.
💡 Actionable Ideas:
Model “good”: Use promotions to explicitly showcase to the wider team what excellent performance actually looks like. When a promotion happens, control the public announcement. Share openly, clearly, and objectively why they earned it.
Nurture the pipeline: Simultaneously, be generous with constructive feedback for the rest of your promotion-track cohort to foster healthy growth.
Consult the next tier: Include those already at the target level in your feedback-gathering rounds. This helps you understand current perceptions and evaluate what kind of peer dynamic the newly promoted person will be entering.
5. Have I built executive exposure for them with the next level up?
As part of the promotion consideration, existing senior leaders need to understand how this person will positively contribute to the organisation’s broader goals. The promotion review should never be the first place they learn about the candidate and their impact.
💡 Actionable Ideas:
Get them on radars early: Proactively create opportunities for your candidate to gain executive exposure, mentoring, and strategic positioning with leaders at the next level up.
Start with shadowing: If a candidate lacks confidence, start by having them watch and shadow executive sessions. This builds their familiarity with the culture, tone, and strategic dynamics expected at the senior level.
6. What are the headcount and financial constraints to consider?
Every promotion ultimately requires an available role at the next level and the budget to accommodate an increase in salary. It’s crucial that you understand this context.
Even when everything else in the case suggests the promotion should happen, macroeconomic and business constraints can still be the make-or-break factor.
Understanding these realities allows you to manage your team’s expectations realistically, preventing a high performer from feeling blindsided by factors entirely outside your control.
💡 Actionable Ideas:
Audit the budget early: Find out as much as you can about headcount allocations and financial parameters as early as possible. You can often find this out from speaking to your lead, HR and operational/finance colleagues typically involved in these processes.
Decouple growth from titles: Ensure your team knows you are invested in their skill development and scope expansion, even during quarters when corporate budgets put a temporary freeze on title changes. The better you understand what motivates your team members, the more successful you’ll be at ensuring they stay engaged and happy, regardless of promotion success.
Further reading & watching:
Promotion Schmomotion - Kim Scott, Radical Candor
12 tips for managers on how to approach promotions - Fast Company
The promotion mistakes that derail PM careers - The Skip
Lucie McLean is a product leader and executive coach based in Berlin. Lucie works with product leaders through 1:1 coaching and also leads the Productlab Leaders Circles - where curated groups of product leaders come together to support, inspire and energise each other to amplify their growth and impact.
To work with Lucie or other coaches with a product leadership background check our Program.