Yeah, to add to this: the best year of my working life, I got an average review. I just happened to be an expert in a bunch of tech that my team had forced on them, ramped them all up, and generally contributed a bunch. And I failed to communicate with my manager - as in, I went three months without meeting him. He had no real idea how much I'd contributed. Now obviously, that's on my manager as well, but ultimately it was me it affected. Since then I've made an effort to own the communication with my manager more, and it's had much better results career-wise.

Ultimately a manager is judged by his/her superiors by their ability to get the most value out of the teams which they are in charge of. So as a report, frequent communication with your manager discussing whats going well, what can be improved, and ideas on how to do it helps them meet their goals as well as making your life easier. It also is likely a primary factor that will help you with your career progression.

From what I have seen over the years theres the top performers who communicate a lot with the manager in the way described above. Also bottom performers communicate frequently with their manager, but for negative reasons. The middle performers often hardly communicate with the manager, and they are likely not going anywhere (which is fine too, if thats what they want).

At the end of the day, a good manager wants to see their reports progress professionally and personally. They should be helping you get to the next level, regardless of what that is for you. Sometimes that means saying goodbye to really talented employees, knowing that they're moving on to bigger and better things than you can provide for them.