[ram_rar]

This advice only works at the team level. Beyond that, it’s borderline fantasy. At senior and leadership levels, promotions aren’t rewards for effort, they’re forward looking bets made by people above you, and those people have incentives, blind spots, and egos. Reporting to an insecure director or a clueless manager will quickly disabuse you of the “just do great work” myth.

Also, if the company isn’t growing, none of this matters. You can operate like a CTO all you want and all that happens is more work gets dumped on you for the same pay. Take on stretch work if you’re hungry for it and it’s explicitly acknowledged as next-level responsibility. Otherwise, you’re just volunteering to be exploited.