<p>While extensive research has recognized the negative effect of performance pressure on front-line employees, little research has explored whether and how performance pressure may affect mid-level managers. Based on the multiple-goal pursuit model (MGPM), we explain how performance pressure and top-management bottom-line mentality (BLM) function as contextual signals, combining to prompt mid-level managers to adopt goal prioritization strategies to reallocate their resources. We further argue that mid-level managers who face high performance pressure and high top-management BLM have the strongest tendency to prioritize performance goals over other resource-competing goals, such as developmental goals, thus contributing to reduced developmental leadership. We retrieved multi-source data with 71 managers (11.3% female) and 476 direct reports (16% female) through a field survey study to test our hypotheses. The study results demonstrate that performance pressure adversely influences developmental leadership via the prioritization of performance goals and supports top-management BLM’s moderating role. Our study contributes to the existing literature regarding performance pressure and developmental leadership and exemplify the MGPM as a theoretical lens to explain and predict decision-making against competing goals in the workplace. For the practitioners, we expect to illuminate performance pressure regulation as a means to facilitate long-term personnel development and how mid-level managers as talent developers are actively and deeply engaged.</p>