Promotion Strategy For Directors In Tech: Stop Relying On Your Manager
- Maya Grossman
- Feb 26
- 5 min read
If one person is the only one who make or break your promotion, you don’t have a promotion strategy for Directors in Tech. You have a single point of failure.
And I know, that sounds dramatic. But it’s just… accurate.
Because promotions are not decided in your one-on-ones. They’re decided in rooms you’re not in, by people who don’t work with you every day, using criteria nobody bothers to write down.
In those rooms, leaders are comparing multiple strong Directors. If only one person can speak to your impact, you’re at a structural disadvantage — even if you’re excellent.
Your manager is one input into that decision. Sometimes a strong one. Sometimes a weak one. Sometimes they don’t show up to the conversation at all because they’re putting out five other fires.
So if your plan is “my manager will fight for me”… you’re exposed.
Let’s change that.
Why Relying on Your Manager Is a Promotion Risk
A high-achieving leader is crushing it. Strong performance. Reliable. Everyone likes them. Their manager says, “You’re doing great, keep doing what you’re doing.”
Then promotion season hits.
And suddenly the feedback shifts to:
“Not this round.”
“We need to see more strategic leadership.”
“The timing isn’t right.”
Here’s what’s really happening in most of these cases:
It’s not that you’re not good.
It’s that your readiness exists almost entirely inside your manager’s head.
And in a promotion room, that’s not enough.
Because the higher you go, the less the question is “Did they deliver?” and the more the question is “Do we trust them with a bigger scope?”
If you want a deeper breakdown of how promotion committees actually evaluate readiness (and why strong performers get passed over), I explain that here.
At the VP level, that trust has to extend beyond your direct reporting line. Senior leaders are evaluating enterprise impact, not team execution.
Trust is rarely built through your manager alone.
Your goal is to be an easy “yes” to the rest of your stakeholders, not just one person.
So here’s how you de-risk your promotion path, without adding more stress to your busy day.
The Promotion Bench: Your Career Insurance
Step 1: Test Whether You’re Manager-Dependent
First things first, let’s make sure you actually have a problem. Answer these quickly, no overthinking:
If my manager changed roles tomorrow, would my promotion still have momentum?
Can I name three influential leaders who would vouch for me without being coached?
Does anyone outside my team understand my impact in business terms?
Do I know what “ready for the next level” actually means here, specifically?
If most of those are “no,” you’re manager-dependent.
That doesn’t mean you’re behind. It means your reputation hasn’t left your team yet.
And reputations that don’t travel don’t get promoted.
Step 2: Identify Three Stakeholders Outside Your Manager
This is the part most people skip, because it feels “extra.” This is what it really takes so put in the effort.
Choose at least three stakeholders who fit one of these roles:
The Decider: close to the promotion conversation, headcount decisions, calibration, or budget tradeoffs. Very often, your skip level.
The Amplifier: a trusted voice whose opinion carries. When they speak, perception shifts.
The Validator: a cross-functional leader who can credibly say, “I’ve worked with them, and I trust them with a bigger scope.”
This is how executive sponsorship actually forms — not through formal programs, but through earned trust and shared outcomes. If executive sponsorship feels vague or political, I break down how to build it strategically (without it feeling forced or awkward) here. These stakeholders are your future bench.
Step 3: Build Trust and Shared Wins With Your Bench
Before you jump into cringe territory, let’s be clear.
You are not scheduling these conversations to pitch yourself. Ask for favors or tell someone to be your mentor.
You’re scheduling them to create familiarity, rapport, and future opportunities to work together.
Because shared wins are what later become proof of your success.
This is also where executive presence quietly matters — how you show up, how you frame business priorities, how you connect dots. If you want to sharpen that skill set, I go deeper on developing executive presence here.
A simple way to request time that doesn’t feel awkward:
“I’m aligning my focus to the org’s highest priorities and looking for opportunities to take on a bigger scope. Could I grab 15 minutes to get your perspective on where you see the biggest needs right now?”
Your goal in these conversations is to walk away with one of the following:
a clearer sense of what they care about and what success looks like
a problem you can help solve
a chance to partner on something meaningful
a way to support their priorities in a visible, measurable way
This is how you stop being “the reliable person on my team” and start becoming “the leader I trust across the org."
By the way, this is very similar to how you would run a listening tour, sponsorship is the added bonus.
Step 4: Create Proof That Travels
It’s not enough to have your bench know about your work; you need that reputation to travel.
“Proof that travels” is evidence of your impact that holds up in a room you’re not in. It’s based on outcomes, not effort. And it’s easy for someone else to repeat without you standing there narrating your hero’s journey.
If your impact can’t be summarized in 30 seconds by someone else in a calibration meeting, it’s not packaged for promotion.
The mistake I see is people relying on two weak forms of proof:
their own opinion of their impact
second or third hand “hearsay.”
Strong proof is different. It’s built through cross-functional outcomes and then packaged in a way senior leaders can quickly understand and share. If you want help crafting updates and impact summaries that senior leaders will actually read and repeat, I share my framework here.
The simplest version is a five-bullet impact brief. Keep it tight:
Business problem: What was at risk or stuck?
What you changed: The decision, shift, or approach you led.
Outcome: What moved (speed, cost, risk, revenue, retention, quality).
Why it mattered: Which org priority it supported.
Next scope: What are you ready to own next, based on what you’ve already proven?
When you do this well, something powerful happens: your stakeholders start telling your story for you.
That’s the point.
Because when your manager is absent, or constrained, or outgunned politically, or your org gets reorganized, and you suddenly report into someone new, you don’t have to start over. This is especially critical in tech, where reorganizations can reset your manager relationship overnight.
Your reputation already exists outside your manager.
You’ve built promotion insurance.
What To Do This Week To Strengthen Your Promotion Strategy as a Director in Tech
Start with a hard reality check: if your manager disappeared tomorrow, would your VP path still move forward?
If the answer is no, your next move isn’t working harder. It’s building your bench.
This week, do the simplest version of this.
Think of a stakeholder you already worked with recently, supported, or have an ongoing relationship with.
Draft your impact brief based on your shared work and share it to get their sign-off. Use that document to socialize your impact.
If your promotion path depends on one person, it’s fragile.
In my free masterclass, I break down exactly how Directors in tech become the obvious choice for VP — including how promotion decisions are made, how to build executive sponsorship, and how to position yourself so the room says “yes.”
I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you
Maya❤️
