All NLLC repeaters, those who return to camp for the second time as well as the following summers, are afforded the opportunity to perform as mentors or role models for the first-time campers. They are taught that basic funamentals of supportive leadership, characterized by warmth, cooperative spirit, and positive expectations, as opposed to the "factory model" which views leaders as functionaries with emphasis on product. They lead first-year campers from behind and do not drive them. They involve them, but do not coerce them. Supportive leadership encourages novice campers to perceive themselves as able, responsible and valuable, to act in accordance with these self-perceptions to the tune of "Deaf people can do anything except hear"

In the role as mentors, the veteran campers are persons of vision. They involve, rather than cocerce the mentees in their vision. They persuade the mentees not by commands, but by the power of their own conviction. They develop a nucleus of campers who work well with them and who, as a team, work well by themselves. Others are drawn in by the magnetism which the team generates - the team's whirlwind of energy and spirit of creativity. The environment is supportive and invitational, no dictatorial. The supportive leaders are trained to focus on mentees' virtues rather than brooding on their shortcomings.

Supportive leadership campions flexibility: the ability of the campers to admit mistakes, to relax their mindset, and to adapt their actions to reality. The ultimate goal is to develop the skills the mentors need to build more leaders - to be architect of the personal and professional growth and development of their peers... to develop a crowd of leaders around them when they return to their respective schools