We tested the two fundamental assumptions of McCauley et al.'s (1994) Developmental Challenges Framework (DCF), which asserts that managers experience five different types of challenges and that each type benefits their leadership development. The DCF has influenced research and practice for 30 years, yet most studies have used a single “overall” challenge score, obscuring any distinct effects from different challenges. We therefore conducted a two-study investigation examining how managers experience challenges at work. Study 1 was a partial replication of Seibert et al.’s (2017), exploring the relationship between developmental challenges and leadership self-efficacy. Study 2 replicated and generalized our initial results in a new sample of managers. Both studies failed to support the DCF. Managers categorized their experiences into two types of challenges (interpersonal difficulty and task complexity), not the predicted five. Moreover, only task complexity was associated with greater leadership self-efficacy, and thus potentially beneficial for development. Contrary to the DCF, we found that experiencing interpersonal difficulty was associated with less leadership self-efficacy, and thus may hinder development. We offer suggestions for richer theory and focused research to understand how challenges shape managers’ leadership development.
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