I've observed that also being completely incompetent doesn't hurt. But you must continuously demo your completely trivial achievements (or demo someone else's achievements before they are ready and can do it themselves).

IC has terrible technical skills --> make them a manager so they stop screwing up the codebase.

Project is behind schedule because of mismanagement --> give them a bigger team because that's what they claim they need to get back on track.

Ha ha, yes, that does happen. Usually with poor results. But... I have seen the opposite case, a person who had great organizational and people skills, and bench skills that were an utter disaster -- but was self-aware enough to realize they needed to be more "hands-off". It turns out that they were self-aware enough to appreciate those bench skills in other people, and good at doing the other things needed to keep a shop productive. I admit, though, this is not guaranteed to happen.