EP 78: The Leadership Ceiling You Can’t See | Lessons from LeaderLab

Your leadership potential is a seed—but only intentional development turns it into something that actually helps people.

Most leaders think their gifting is enough. It’s not. In this conversation, Mark and Erica unpack the difference between being naturally gifted and actually being developed. They walk through why leaders plateau, how pride sneaks in, and why God often uses pressure, pain, and people to stretch your capacity.

📋 Key Takeaways

• Giftedness is a seed, not a finished product  |  God gives potential—but expects cultivation (Genesis 2:15 idea). 
• Growth requires intentional effort, not passive waiting  |  No one develops you by accident—you take responsibility. 
• Isolation creates deception  |  You feel impressive until you get around people who are more developed. 
• Your “lid” is often internal, not external  |  Even when circumstances limit you, your character can always grow. 
• Capacity expands through discomfort and testing  |  God stretches leaders through pressure, not comfort. 

💬 Quotes & Soundbites

•  “Your gift is just a seed. Let’s grow this thing up.” 
•  “Just because someone else is failing their test doesn’t mean you have to fail yours.” 
•  “Capacity expands through pain.” 
•  “You don’t hit a character lid—you can always grow there.” 

📖 Scripture Tie-Ins

• Philippians 2:3–4 – Leadership is about serving others, not promoting yourself 
• Proverbs 27:17 – “Iron sharpens iron…” 
• Genesis 2:15 – Cultivate what God has given you 
• 1 Samuel 9-31 (King Saul’s story) – A gifted leader who stopped developing 
• Genesis 37-50 (Joseph’s story) – Development through hardship 

🛠️ Next Steps for Listeners

1. Ask yourself honestly:  Where am I relying on gifting instead of growth?

2. Change your environment:  Get around people who are stronger than you in your area of gifting.

3. Start a weekly rhythm:

•  Study leadership (Scripture + practical learning) 
•  Practice repentance (stay soft, stay teachable) 
•  Serve before you lead 

4. Journaling Prompt:  Where am I being stretched right now—and how might God be growing me through it? 

5. Prayer:  “God, don’t just use me—develop me into someone You can trust.”

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Check out our website: Bibleleadership.com

Sign up for our newsletter:  http://bit.ly/3NmVmNM

Transcript

Capacity Expands Through Pain

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Capacity does need to expand, but capacity expands via pain. So, like understanding, like there's times God's gonna lead you into capacity stretching tests when you're uncomfortable and you want to get out. It's not that you're not special, it's not that you're not gifted. It's like it is beautiful and it's wonderful and it's from the Lord, and that is a that that is a solution for something on planet Earth. But the same devil is gonna mess with that just like he messes with everything else. Just because you're failing your tests doesn't mean I have to fail my tests. I'm actually some of my my tests I pass in light of you failing your tests. You're being a jerk to me. I'm gonna try to be sweet to you.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Hey Bible Leadership peeps, we're so glad that you're joining us. I want to just let you know you're jumping into a conversation that Mark and I are having about a thing we have called Leader Lab. So we are at our church trying to grow our leaders so that they are more effective in their leadership, in their capacity, and their love of God and the love of his people. And so we're gonna talk about just different principles that we're going through this with our Leader Lab people. And we invite you to join because when a leader gets better, everybody gets better, as Craig Rochelle would say. So dive in with us.

Potential Requires Intentional Development

SPEAKER_02 1:15

What's happening, everybody? Welcome back to the Bobbin Leadership Podcast. I'm here with Erica, and we're gonna go through some hopefully very helpful leadership content today. Just to give you a little bit of background. We're in the middle of a five-month leadership training program at our church. We talked about a little bit called Leader Lab, and some of today's content is actually from Leader Lab. We've gone through these principles with the leaders we're developing. We thought it might be helpful just to share it with the online audience. So hopefully you guys uh really get a lot out of this. We're gonna start talking about today leadership potential.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Yeah. So a lot of the content that we're talking about is from this book, Leadership Potential or Spiritual Leadership by Jay Oswald Sanders. Great leaderbook. You were just saying what?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

That's the first leadership book I ever read.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Wow, awesome. So we're gonna dive into just some of the principles from today. Um, you already have leadership potential, but it only matters if you are intentional to develop it. Talk about that, Mark.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yeah, so um we we've talked about this a lot on the podcast, but we we like to get this really entrenched in our people's thinking as we're going through the class. Just that um no one's gonna develop them. It's up to them to develop them, but there's a lot to develop there if they'll just be patient and and really work the soil of their hearts that God has given them, work God's word into it, work skill into it, take opportunities that God has given them. So um it's it's really it's trying to give them the burden of you can do a lot. You just have to decide to do that and do it consistently.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

I think if you think about a young leader, I mean, even as a little kid, so I was in classrooms where I was an aide there, and you can just you could start to see the kids who they have a natural leadership gifting. They just rise above. It there nobody's telling them to, nobody's encouraging them to. It's just kind of intrinsic into who they are. Um, but with that, there's there's gold that needs to be mined, right? And so um that's every leader. You have a golden nugget within you, but it's gotta be mined and it's gotta be honed.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Yeah, that's exactly it. And and I think I understood early, and I just did this because people would tell me this hey, you're gifted. You're gifted at this. Okay. I probably believed, like a lot of people do, oh, that's great. So I'll just use my gift and that'll be that. Yeah. And I didn't really get the value of being developed as a leader, either from my end or from someone else helping me to develop. And so that really changed the game. Like once you understand, even your giftedness, it's just a seed. It's just a baby deposit. Okay. God has given you that to be faithful with and to cultivate, not to just like ride.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Um, and so that I think that changes your understanding of what you're doing with your leadership a little bit once once you understand you've only got the baby version. Like, let's grow this up.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

Yeah. It yeah. I love that word cultivated, because I think that's a any any seed that goes down, it has to die. But you like the farmer has to cultivate. Like it has it has to be tended to in order for it to do anything well.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Aaron Powell, and if you think about that's exactly what the Lord asked Adam and Eve to do, the very first thing was like, you got this garden, cultivate it. Like make this better than it is, like work this thing so that it's and that's that's pretty like God's perfect world still needed to be cultivated. Yeah. So even as fallen creatures, of course, then we need to cultivate the stuff that he puts in us.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

Aaron Powell Yeah. And then the inverse is also true, right? When we don't cultivate it, like it's just going to get worse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

At the very least, it won't bear fruit. Right. It might just become rotten. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Cultivate The Seed Or It Atrophies

SPEAKER_04 4:46

Right. Atrophy is part of nature if we don't work it. Okay. That's good. All right. So uh give us some cautions about young leaders, what what they're generally starting out with, potentially.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Aaron Powell Yeah. So I think um if they're not if they don't have a development mindset, they might plateau. So they might just be like, okay, this is good, kind of like what I talked about. Um they won't necessarily expand into helping more people. One of the problems with early on, you can be very self-focused, of like, this is for my benefit or for my you know, popularity or something like that, to be known as somebody helpful or even get a like a minor test done. When we have a development mindset, we're starting to think about how many more people could I help? When you don't have a development mindset, you can start to be wonder, like, why aren't I progressing further than this by now? Like, why aren't more doors opening for me? And it's because you know God is actually even sometimes holding you back because he wants you to develop the gift more. Like it's great that you have that. That's from God. Like no one's God is excited about that. But for you to go further, God's like, all right, let's let's develop the garden, man. And so when people don't know that, okay, they just they're kind of irritated. And I I think I was this way early early on. Irritated of like, why aren't more people recognizing my giftedness? Because you're not really very helpful. And you're not increasingly helpful.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

That was a danger for me at least. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Get Sharpened By Other Gifted Leaders

SPEAKER_04 6:13

That's really, really good. Growth isn't automatic, it's mind. It's something that has to be worked in. Okay. So, Mark, what then is the difference between being gifted and being developed?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

I think it's it it we can use the language that we've been using in this podcast already. The difference is that it's between a seed and between developing it, cultivating it. You're born with the seed, you gotta give it sunshine, you gotta give it um you know the right soil. You maybe got a spray for you know bad things getting in the soil.

SPEAKER_04 6:45

Yeah, I'm pulling out the tears. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Um so you have to like give that its best chance at life, and then hopefully that's gonna bear a little bit of seed, and then you plant those things and that keeps growing. So one is very like, oh, this is what you have, you're born with this. The other one is okay, let's leverage this. Let's let's it's it's giving back to the Lord. Let's let's take what He's given us and make something more beautiful and more fruitful than it was.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Aaron Powell Yeah, that's really good. So, with that in mind, where have you seen that um that gap show up in your your own leadership journey, starting as a young person and like diving in?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

And I'm sure people have seen this in in different ways in their lives, but maybe a a simple way to say it is your gifts show up when you're around people that don't have those gifts. Okay? So if you're if you're active, if you're if you're if you're being yourself and allowing you know God to express himself through you, your gifts are gonna show up around people that don't have your gift. But if you'll put yourself around people that have your gifts, all the weaknesses of your gifts start to show up. Okay. All the crudeness, the underdevelopedness of your gift begins to show up. Because all these other people have varying degrees of the same gift. Some are not only stronger than yours, some are way stronger than yours. Some are like way more developed in certain areas. I remember the first time I was in a seminary class when I just heard a young man answer a question, and it was so like profound and yet simple and yet, you know, astute. Astute, salient. Like it's just like, dog on, that kid is smart. And and it like opened me up to this, like, oh dude, I'm filled, I'm in a room of really smart people right now. And that was, of course, hopefully you're in seminary. Um but but it was humbling in a good way of like oh, this helps me. Like that's what I felt. I felt grateful. Like I get to be around people that are really smart about this thing. Okay. And so anytime we can get around other people that that are around, or we can get around other people that have those gifts like us but are also developing, it just pulls us up.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Yeah. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

And so that's where I began to notice of like, oh uh Carter, if if they're so much smarter than you, and they're not even he was probably younger than me, even.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

And and yet I was like, all right, then I may have a long way to go, but this is the best place for me to be, is around people that are trying to take around. That's one of the reasons we do Leader Lab. Yep. It's not just that we could teach each individual those principles. But when you put them around each other, they get in a good, godly, ambition, ambitious way. Okay. Like, let's pull each other forward because I'm excited about what God's doing to you. I want that to be.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

That's the whole idea of it as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. And if you're not in a place to be sharpened, you are just going to then remain dull. Like your skills and your abilities aren't going to be Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

And it's deceptive to not be in a place where you're around other gifted people in the same ways that you're gifted.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Because then you're just you kind of rest on your lowers, like, well, I'm gift more gifted than all these bozos.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

But that's just going to reinforce pride.

Pride, Defensiveness, And Saul’s Warning

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah. Without thinking of a name without naming a name, could you think of a person that you're like, yeah, they I saw great potential in them and they just did not own it.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Yes. And it was what what happened was it became an inverse. So it became about they were gifted, but it became about defending their giftedness. Like, let everybody know I'm this gifted. Because they weren't around enough sharpening that would have naturally humbled them. You get around some studs, dude, and they just their their horns start to jab you. Okay. You're like, oh my gosh. Okay. That he just wouldn't put himself around those things. And I, you know, I love the guy to death. I think he's very different today, but at the time, he was very defensive and like, I want everybody to know that I'm this guy. And it was like less impressive every time you were around it.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

Yeah. Can you think of uh a biblical character that is a cautionary tale for us with this as well?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

I think one of the classic ones is Saul. So Saul starts out so good, but he in he is a classic example of someone who's not trying to develop themselves. He's not trying to get closer to the Lord. He's not trying to like grow in repentance. He doesn't think like he has like one great victory with Jabesh Gilead. Yeah. And like that's he kind of rides that the rest of his life until he's opposing David. He totally wimps out with uh Goliath. And so he he he's you're you're watching a leader from the posture that don't understand how awesome I am.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

And that is like how different might you have been if he's like, now dude I'm like I'm okay, but I want to get How's gonna be a great king? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like that wasn't his heart.

SPEAKER_04 11:15

Wow. Okay, where I um we didn't prep this, so I'm totally putting you on the spot too. But like, can what are what are some like super concrete first steps for for a young leader who's hearing this and they're like, ah I'm feeling convicted because I'm I think that might be me. What do you do?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Yeah, I think one, I have a lot of compassion for that. And it's not that you're not special. It's not that you're not gifted. It's like it is beautiful and it's wonderful and it's from the Lord, and that is a that that is a solution for something on planet Earth. But the same devil is gonna mess with that just like he messes with everything else. Yeah. So I would encourage you, one of the smartest moves you can do, you can do this on your own, but only to it to a degree. You can repent and you can ask for humility and that kind of thing. But at some point, dude, you've got to find a way with God's help, whether it's an online cohort or whether it's something at your local church or wherever it is, you've got to get around other similarly gifted people just so you can be humbled. It's not so you can share your stuff with them. It's just so you can see there are so many facets to the diamond of these gifts that I need to like, I need to humble myself. And I have like three of the facets, but there's like so many. Yeah. I just need to get around these other people. And it's not a threat to them. And when you, if you are threatened, that itself is a sanctification moment where you can say, okay, I'm like jealous of that girl or I'm jealous of this guy. I bet you if I would just die to that, we could be great friends and I can learn a lot from them and be a partner in the kingdom rather than like kind of competing with them. Yeah. Like that's just all it's it's understandable, but it's also baby stuff. And I don't mean that as a diss, I just mean it really is. Sure. Drop that and just say, my ambition in life is gonna be to get as good as possible, but not in contrast to these people, but with these people.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

In compliment to. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yes.

The Law Of The Lid Explained

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Because we are all parts of one body and we all work together in unity. Okay. That's it. That's it. Really good. All right. One of the next things we're gonna kind of talk about is from John C. Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. This was the first leadership book I ever read. And chapter one is about the law of the lid. And the law of the lid is this leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness. The lower an individual's ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential. The higher the leadership, the greater effectiveness. So when a young leader hits a lid, Mark, a ceiling on their influence, how can they tell whether it's external circumstances or an internal development issue?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

It's actually a question. So let's just pull apart the question a little bit. So it was is this, I'm in this leadership, I feel like I'm hitting a lid-a ceiling. Um is this because of the circumstances I'm in, meaning this is forcing me, I can't go any further because of where I am. Yep. Or is that there's something wrong in me that's keeping me from pushing forward. It may be that the first one is happening. It may be that you're in a situation where you really are like there's there's some you're in job. I've I've been in jobs where, okay, there's no there's no place for me to develop any further potential with regard to my giftedness here. Um the danger there though, so when you're in a a sticky situation like that, one of the dangers is saying, okay, then there's nothing I can do. That's almost never true.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

What you can do is take that time, like Joseph, like David, to develop yourself internally, which is part the other the other part of it. Is it an internal development issue? Um you can always develop yourself internally. So that's like part of the trick of that question. Uh there's never a moment where you can't develop yourself internally, and you should always be seeking to develop yourself internally. So again, it goes back to a growth mindset or a um, what's the other one? A set mindset or whatever we call it.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Um the growth mind-minded person says, there's always more I could do. There's always more way for me to leverage this. It's not ideal, but that's just that's so I had this boss. There's just kind of a real man, he's a hard guy. He's a hard guy to get along with, yo. Okay. Um and he would he would even claim a version of spirituality of devotion to Jesus. And yet he would consist of like, if that's true, dude, you are failing your tests a lot.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

But just because you're failing your tests doesn't mean I have to fail my tests. I'm actually some of my my tests I pass in light of you failing your test. You're being a jerk to me. I'm gonna try to be sweet to you. Like that's me passing a test.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

Yeah, and can I in just inject something too? It um it doesn't negate the fact that there's probably tests that you need to pass in this as well.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Some of them say it differently. Let's see if you can be sweet while this guy's being Sasquatch to you. Um So those are the kinds of things like my character lid, dude, you're probably not gonna hit a character lid.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

Let's say that again.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

You're not gonna hit a character lid. Yeah. You've always got to grow in integrity. So if if you're stuck and that can be frustrating, and it's like, why do I have to be here?

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Take it like like Joseph. Joseph, um, it's very unlikely that Joseph at 17 had all the right skills and character to run the country that he did at 30.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

At 17, though, he had to decide I'm gonna go through these tests where I'm abandoned by my family and I'm a slave and whatever. I'm gonna develop, I'm gonna grow, even though Potiphar's being mean to me, even though the guys in jail forgot me. I'm gonna keep becoming the guy I'm supposed to be in preparation for when I get to the palace just by faith for him. We've all got to have that Joseph faith.

SPEAKER_04 16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

I'm gonna be there someday. I'm gonna have the character now that I'm gonna want then.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

Yeah, that's good. Um, it makes me think of uh Philippians chapter two, verses three through four. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility, then value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. And so, like remembering, you may have this gift, but the Lord is He's given to it to you, not for you, actually, even. It's for the needs of others. It's to serve the kingdom.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Aaron Ross Powell And I think that verse is a great example of that's why there is a Bible leadership podcast. Because it's not just developing your exterior gifts, it's saying I want to be that Joseph that considers other others' needs before my own. Like that's who I want to arrive at. And so if I'm not thinking about the internal development of the internal man, I'm just missing half of what God is trying to do. You know, if not more.

Rhythms That Raise Capacity This Week

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Yeah. So that's great. Let's keep going. If someone is listening right now and they're feeling stuck, what's one practical rhythm that they could start this week to intentionally raise their leadership capacity?

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah. So um what they could do this week is the stuff that they should keep doing every week for the next like infinite weeks. And that's that sounds hard. But it's kind of like if someone isn't a great boxer but they want to be a great boxer, what should they do this week? Well, they should do what they should do consistently. Um they should get in the gym, you know, they should they should start to work out. Uh for for those of us who need something to do, this is and this is this is where the cross isn't sexy, dude. Like the cross is not there are hacks, but there's also just, yeah, you gotta what should they do? They should humble themselves. They should study leadership. You know, they should build a lifestyle of repentance so that you stay safe later on as a leader. You should recognize that capacity does need to expand, but capacity expands via pain. So, like understanding like there's times that God is gonna lead you into capacity stretching tests when you're uncomfortable and you want to get out.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

But that's not the answer. The answer is to like, okay, Jesus, stretch my capacity to be able to deal with these things. And I can remember very early on, even in old torch days, yeah, when I was like, God, how can you ask me to do all this? And the answer was, I'm stretching your capacity. Just let me do it. And kind of, you know, just like you might stretch out a like a catcher's mit, you do get stretched out. Like it does, you start to get softer and easier, and like this is an easier thing. But that's painful. And so like you gotta, there's gotta be like a okay, I'm willing to go through pain. Um ask for God to use you, but then look for where you can serve. So this is where when we got leadership gifts, we're like, God, give me something to lead. And really that's that's humorous. Um, and it's it's well intentioned, but he he does that through, God give me somewhere to serve. Like show me a towel, like give me some who are the people you want me to make their life better instead of give instruction to.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

You you may very well end up giving instruction to them. But the Jesus way is stoop first, kneel to rise. Yeah. And that's that's how that works. So invest in people. That's how I would I would talk about how do you develop your leadership capacity? To a degree you gotta get over yourself as a leader and just want to be Jesus' servant. I think don't be afraid. Just don't be afraid of seeing where you're not as good at something than other people. The fear of it can make you just guarded and keep you from all the help that they could be to you.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Like God grows us, you're all little flowers in God's flower bed. Like you shouldn't be like hiding from some of the flowers, just like, hey, we're flowers together, let's grow together. Even if they're kind of off-putting to you, still, what can you learn from them? Like, I feel like God can trust the kinds of leaders who say, I can learn from anybody, I can be David and learn from Saul, if that's what it takes.

Closing And Share The Podcast

SPEAKER_04 20:37

That's good. That's good. All right, well, we are not done. There is a lot more gold to be mined from our leader lab lessons. We'll come back. Hope you join us next time. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

All right, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Hey, if this was helpful, would you consider liking and sharing, putting it places where other people who need this kind of content are going to find it? Also, you may know that we have a lot of other places you can find our stuff TikTok, Instagram, all the things. So go ahead and check those out in places where you're going to be anyway. And don't forget to lead strong today.