"Here's the thing most people miss: promotions don't fall off the tree and land in your lap. You've got to show that you're capable of handling the responsibility for a sustained period of time."
Some classic management gaslighting. You have to work for a few years at the level of the higher position to get it. I will trust your work at this level, profit off of it, hold you responsible for it but not pay you appropriately for it. It's always the compensation piece that takes time.
Not really related to what I said but I'll bite. Let me try phrasing it in a different way, if someone asked you to, in addition to doing your own job, do someone elses, but instead of paying you for that additional work said you'd get great "exposure" and a future reward, would you jump at that chance?
I know many people that have because they care, they are hungry, they want to advance, they can do higher level things and want to prove themselves, etc. and the vast majority of them have gotten nothing for their trouble but extra work. We live in a world where working hard is always encouraged and its virtues extolled but rarely rewarded.
Some classic management gaslighting. You have to work for a few years at the level of the higher position to get it. I will trust your work at this level, profit off of it, hold you responsible for it but not pay you appropriately for it. It's always the compensation piece that takes time.