These days it's the manager who writes the next-level assessment (NLA) and it's the NLA that forms the main body of the packet that the promo committee looks at. They're also the one soliciting and summarizing peer feedback etc.
That's wildly incompatible with my experience there in the previous decade. I hope the current managers are up to the job! Most of my managers didn't have even the slightest inkling of how to evaluate what I was doing on the job. One of them was mainly occupied with running the "mindfulness" office.
> That's wildly incompatible with my experience there in the previous decade
Yes, there have been some very signficant changes over the last few years. Promos are decided in-org. Managers play a much more important role. There are promo quotas along with associated pressures (felt more acutely in some orgs compared to others).
But, putting that asides, a manager who doesn't have any idea of what or how their reports are doing is clearly failing at their job under any of those systems.