The "performing" rating means to meet expectations and periodically exceed them. "Leading" means to consistently exceed them. If the expectation is to do your job, then exceeding expectations would be to do things above and beyond the basic job duties.
On the engineering side, those who help support their peers and collaborate with other peer groups and departments while meeting their basic job expectations will have a better chance of getting leading. This is simply due to how managers on a director team stack rank their employees, the basis of which determines the end of year rating. When comparing two employees who do their jobs equally well, the one who supports others will get ranked higher than the one who doesn't. You can't sit in the shadows and just do your basic job duties with minimum interaction with the rest of your team and expect to get leading. Being supportive of your team will also likely create a paper trail of things your manager can use to advocate for a leading rating, and a promotion.
The problem with the leading rating comes when trying to promote an employee. I've seen promotions happen in two different ways:
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Manager gets a headcount and posts a job opening for the new engineering level for the promotion for a short period of time and has the target employee apply for it. A standard interview process ensures, but the short time the position stays open for usually minimizes the risk of a more qualified person applying.
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Manager works with HR to directly promote the employee. Usually this requires a year of meeting HR deliverables. However, a leading rating can usually bypass the long and slow HR promotion process.
If there's no headcount for option 1, then option 2 must be done. Usually a manager doesn't want to wait a year and jump through HR hoops to promote an employee, especially to not lose up and coming talent, so the fastest way would be to give an employee leading and bypass the HR year long action plan.
The problem is it that HR only allows 1-2 leading ratings per director team, which can be 70+ employees, so using a leading rating for a promotion likely means it has to be taken from someone who deserves it.
I've seen some terrible managers, so I'm sure that they're the cause of many missed promotions and year end ratings that are not given to who truly deserve it, but getting promoted and a leading rating requires going well above and beyond the basic job duties and active communication with your manager so they know what you're doing. Document the things you believe you're doing that would make you deserve a leading rating or a promotion. Compare your notes with your manager at the mid year review and before the year end (stack ranking is usually set before the year's end). Your manager can't tell you exactly where you are on the stack ranking, but they can give you a general idea if you're towards the top or not. Often times theres more deserving candidates for leading and promotions than a director can give out in a year, so the manager team has to fight amongst themselves for which will get the top ratings and promotions. The manager who is armed with the most data on their employees achievements will usually win out.
If you were passed up for a promotion/leading, make sure you understand why and work on the things your manager tells you to work on to better position yourself for next year. If theres no progress in a couple years despite you doing what you were supposed to work on (and actually improving), then you need to find a different team because your manager is the obstacle.
Reposted from @XBAWIZw-5ukw .