Own Your Narrative: The Key to Getting Promoted (and Growing as a Leader)

So many people believe hard work alone will earn them a promotion.
But after mentoring hundreds of people on career growth — I can tell you, that’s rarely the case.

In fact, the thing that holds most people back isn’t their skills or their results.
It’s that they don’t know how to tell their story.

The invisible gap

I’ve worked with people across startups, big tech, and everything in between. And I’ve seen the same patterns show up again and again:

They couldn’t articulate why they deserved a promotion.
Or they had a story — but it was based on vague feelings, not facts.
Sometimes, their narrative made perfect sense to them, but was totally disconnected from how their organization actually makes decisions.

At Google, this kind of coaching was easier.
We had job ladders, documentation, defined processes. You could point someone to a doc and say, “Start here.”

But in startups, it’s a lot more blurry.
And yet — the core principles are exactly the same.

Let’s break them down.

The 3 building blocks of a strong promotion narrative

Every compelling story needs structure. Your promotion case is no different.

In my experience, every solid promotion narrative includes three elements:

1. Impact

What changed because of your work?
Start with your team or project: What impact did it have on the org?
Then ask: What was your role in making that happen?

2. Challenge

What made the work difficult?
Where did you push through ambiguity? Solve a problem no one else could?
This is where you highlight your strengths — and what made the work meaningful.

3. Leadership

This one’s trickier — especially for people who aren’t officially managing others.
But leadership shows up in all kinds of ways:

How you led yourself through uncertainty.
How you contributed to the team’s success.
How you took initiative or helped raise the bar.

And here’s the question that ties it all together:

“How do I know this is true?”

This is what every promotion reviewer is wondering — even if they don’t say it out loud.

At Google, we called this evidence.
Numbers. Documents. Feedback. Code. Screenshots. Outcomes.
You need to make your story real.

My own story: the blind spot I couldn’t see

A few years ago, I was working toward a promotion to director.
And even though I had helped so many others craft their narratives… I hadn’t really done that work for myself.

So I took a step back and asked:
If someone else read my story — my impact, my challenges, my leadership — would it hold up?

That’s when I saw it:
My leadership story was weak.
Not because I wasn’t leading — but because I wasn’t naming it. Owning it.
It wasn’t coming through in the way others would understand or recognize.

That blind spot made the whole narrative wobble.

So I hired a coach — not to write the story for me, but to help me work through that leadership gap.
To understand how I was showing up, how others experienced me, and what it really meant to lead at the next level.

And here’s the thing: it worked.

Yes, I got the promotion.
But more importantly, I became a better leader.

Clearer. More intentional. More effective at guiding others and delivering results.

And it started by being honest about where my narrative fell short — and doing the work to strengthen it.

If you’re aiming for a promotion

Here’s where to start:

Write your narrative. Just for you. Be honest. Be specific.
Talk it through with your manager. Not as a pitch — as a conversation.
Find what’s missing. Is it evidence? A clearer challenge? A leadership angle?
Fill the gaps. Either by surfacing work you’ve already done, or shaping the work ahead so that your story will be solid in 6–12 months.

Different companies use different language:
At Meta, it’s technical depth and scope.
At Amazon, it’s leadership principles.
At Microsoft, it’s impact and bringing others along.

But it’s all pointing to the same thing.