Push, wait or walk: how each one plays out, and the deadline to set this week

Back in April, over a closed-door conversation, your manager told you: "We're targeting Q2. It's done. Paperwork is the only thing holding it up." Now it's October, and that paperwork still hasn't landed anywhere. Since May you've been introducing yourself with the new title in meetings, a habit she encouraged. The pay never changed. You've brought it up offhandedly two times, and both times the reply amounted to "soon, any day."

You are now 49 years of age. You can already tell a postponement from an outright rejection. What you suspect is that you have been turned down in small installments by someone who cares about you too much to say no all at once. There are three paths open to you, and the one you pick this week will set the course for the next half year.

Route A. Push

State a deadline aloud, here in Richmond. "We settled on Q2 back in April. It's October. Bring me a date by Friday, along with what it hinges on and the name of the person accountable." The catch is that pressing this hard can brand you as the one who pushed, and some managers quietly remember that. The upside is a real answer. It may not be the one you hoped for, but a real answer is the only kind you can plan around, whether you are in Glen Allen, Midlothian or downtown.

Route B. Wait

Choose to trust her and hold out for one more quarter. The cost is simple math. Picture the raise as $20,000. Half a year of waiting leaves you $10,000 short for good, not counting the bonus and the retirement match that would have been calculated on top of it. What waiting teaches you may be the steeper price. Every month that the promise slides without anyone being held to it reinforces the idea that it can slide, and a promise that can slide is essentially a mood.

Route C. Walk

Put the work you're already doing in front of the outside market, where it earns a real price tag. The risk is leaving while your résumé still shows the smaller title, and having to explain an exit from a role you were "about to" be promoted into. What you gain is that the market won't sit around waiting on paperwork. It rewards the role you can truly perform, and you bring six months of evidence to the table. Richmond's employers, from Dominion Energy and Capital One to the region's hospitals and universities, hire at many levels, and a current record of results carries weight in any of them.

Counsel from veteran executives

Leaders who did get the title say that a promise without a date is only a hope, and hopes do not survive budget cycles. According to a 2025 report from McKinsey and LeanIn, for every 100 men elevated to manager, only 93 women are, and merely 54% of companies treat women's advancement as a top priority. Throughout the period Lean In and McKinsey dubbed the "Great Breakup," two women directors walked out for each one who received a promotion. Those women were not impatient. They had been patient for years, and that patience had gotten them nowhere.

Their advice also includes attaching a second ask to the push: request that the effective date be set back to Q2. It is a reasonable ask, it puts the cost of the delay on the table, and a manager who means her word will fight for it. If a manager declines, the explanation they offer about why it can't be done still tells you something.

The decision

Whether you pursue this rests on whether you walk out Friday holding a date. Push, Option A, this week. A concrete date tied to a named obstacle justifies waiting one more time, provided that date is put in writing. If there's no date, or the date keeps shifting, move to Option C and let the open market decide when this happens.

Your vote

If you were in this spot, would you press, hold on, or leave? Cast your vote below. Next week we'll share the findings, including the deadline most of our readers say they would have set.