The Three Roles Every Leader Must Understand about Development

Often during my study time, I will read scripture and can clearly see leadership lessons hidden in the words. Just recently, while I was studying the relationship of Paul and John Mark (Acts 13:5-13, 15:36-40 and II Timothy 4:11), leadership lessons leapt off the pages!

Here’s a summary of the story. A young man named Mark joins Paul and Barnabas on a mission, then walks away partway through; Barnabas wants him back. Paul refuses – sharply enough that the two split for good. That could be the whole story but writing from prison years later, Paul asks for Mark by name: "he is useful to me for ministry." The man he once refused is now someone he wants beside him. Most read this as Mark's redemption arc. It's really about three leadership roles and what each owes the development process.

The Mentee Mark:  Every developing leader has a Mark season – a moment of walking away. What matters is what happens next: does the failure become identity or information? Mark kept showing up. By the time Paul asks for him again, Mark isn't the same person who left.

The Mentor Barnabas: His name means "son of encouragement," and he earns it by advocating for Mark's potential when Paul is ready to write him off. A mentor's job isn't to defend someone's past. It's to advocate for their ‘not-yet’ potential.

The Leader Paul: He isn't wrong to have a standard, but his read on Mark is incomplete. He judges a season and calls it a character trait. The real growth here is Paul's in his capacity to revise his own judgment. Paul led by what Mark had done. Barnabas led by what Mark could still become.

Every developing relationship holds these same three roles:

The mentee's job: let failure be data, not a diagnosis.

The mentor's job: hold space for who someone is becoming.

The leader's job, hardest of all: stay teachable about your own verdicts.

While it is easy to type these lessons on a page, it has been much harder to walk them out. Over more than 25 years of leadership, I have experienced all three of these roles, and the moments that stretched me most in each role have made me a better leader.

As a mentee, I experienced what I would describe as a devastating public failure. It was a harsh blow to my ego and to the confidence I had built in my own leadership ability. When the project failed, I felt like my career was over. I questioned whether I was equipped or capable of leading projects of that complexity and scale. I languished in that belief for a while, convinced that perhaps I had reached the limits of my leadership. I was prepared to leave my role, leave the organization, and start over somewhere else.

But my leader didn't see the failure as a diagnosis of who I was. Through consistent reassurance, coupled with some very sobering conversations, my leader helped me see what I could not yet see for myself: the project had failed, but I was not a failure.

That experience taught me one of the hardest lessons of leadership: sometimes the most important thing a mentor can do is hold space for the person someone is becoming when that person can only see who they were in the moment of failure.

I needed someone who could acknowledge what I had done wrong without allowing my mistakes to become my identity. Eventually, I had to do the same for myself. That experience profoundly shaped how I lead others.

As a leader, I have often seen ability and talent in people long before they could see it in themselves. I have recognized potential and opened doors because I could envision what someone could become.

But my own optimism (at times bordering on naivety) has also created opportunities that people were not quite ready to handle; sometimes, the outcome was not favorable. I've had to learn that seeing someone's potential is not the same as declaring them ready.

That distinction has required me to become more discerning. I have had to learn how to see talent and possibility while also allowing time, experience, exposure, and demonstrated capability to inform my assessment of someone's readiness.

In other words, I have had to stop confusing potential with preparedness. That has been a humbling lesson. As leaders, we can make two very different mistakes. We can underestimate someone because we cannot yet see what they are capable of becoming. Or we can overestimate someone because we see so clearly what we believe they could become.

Both require us to examine our own verdicts. The first asks us to believe in people beyond their current performance. The second asks us to be honest about whether our belief has outrun their readiness. That is why developing relationships require all three roles.

The mentee must learn to say, "This failure is something I experienced; it is not who I am."

The mentor must learn to say, "I can see something in you that you may not yet be able to see in yourself."

And the leader must continually ask, "Am I seeing this person clearly? Or am I projecting my own expectations, assumptions, or hopes onto them?" 

Leadership development isn't simply about helping someone become better. It is also about becoming better at seeing people accurately, creating room for growth, and remaining humble enough to revise our own conclusions.

Be Well,

LIPSTICK Coach