I love leadership. I love growing as a leader. I love raising up other leaders around me. I have attended conferences on leadership, taken online courses in leadership, and read many books, by some of the greatest leadership authors of our time and from the past. However, one of the greatest leadership lessons I have learned, actually came to me when I was reading the Bible. I was taking note of how Jesus organized those He led around Himself, and found this very helpful principle for my own leadership, and I believe, as it does come from the greatest leader in (and out) of history, it is relevant for anyone in leadership to understand. 

Jesus Loved and Served Everyone

The first thing we must understand about Jesus is that He loved everyone He came in contact with, ministered with compassion to all, and demonstrated grace to everyone, even the ones everyone else loathed. It is His nature to love, and his desire to save everyone. However, as He walked the earth in a human body, Jesus seemingly realized that His physical limitations would prevent Him from giving equal time to everyone. Equal grace, love, and dignity for all? Yes. Equal face time? No.

When Jesus called His disciples, He called 12 men to drop everything and come follow Him. These 12 had a unique leadership connection to Jesus as He commissioned them for ministry (Matthew 10:1-15). These 12 men were there for it all, and they received special times with the Lord behind closed doors, when Jesus would go deeper in His teachings about the Kingdom of God. 

However, among the twelve, Jesus held an even closer relationship with three men, who have been dubbed the inner circle, made up of Peter, James (or Jacob) and John. Jesus allowed these three men to walk with him in some of the most intimate and personal times of His life and ministry, such as when He met with Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop, called the ‘transfiguration’ (Matthew 17:1-8), or in the Garden of Gethsemane as He called out to God in prayer the night before His crucifixion (Matthew 26:36-38). The rest of the 12 apostles just did not get this same access to Jesus.

Beyond just the 12, we also know that Jesus had more disciples who were with Him regularly, and heard His teachings often, because He later sends out 72 people to do ministry themselves in the towns He would soon be going to (Luke 10:1-12). These 72 must have been following Him for a while and learned the basics of ministry from Him in order for Him to be willing to send them out like this. Still, though, these did not get the same relationship or access to Jesus as the 12, or the 3.

More than this, we also know that beyond these 72, Jesus was followed by multitudes of people hearing His teaching and becoming His disciples. There were so many in this crowd that at one point He had to get in a boat and push away from shore a bit to be able to teach them all (Matthew 13:1-9). We also know that this number of people ran into the thousands, because even the disciples began to be concerned for the crowd’s well-being, asking Jesus to send them away so they could find food (Matthew 14:13-15). 

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Lesson for Leadership: “The 3-12-72 Principle”

It is clear that while He was on earth, Jesus had a great ministry that reached thousands of people, in a day when technology, internet, and great sound systems hadn’t even been thought up yet. Nevertheless, despite His love for every one of them, Jesus devoted Himself first and foremost to the 3, to the 12, and the 72, because they would be the next generation of leaders when He moved on. 

There is an important lesson demonstrated by Jesus’ disciple-making, that every leader must come to terms with, and that is you cannot – and should not – make an attempt to mentor and develop every person who comes to you one-on-one. You do not have the time, energy, or even the ability to do so. 

For any organization to grow and thrive, the senior leader must identify a few key leaders whom he can train and raise up well, and then send them out to train and mentor more in the same way. Just like Jesus, every leader should have a very small group of people who have full access to them, to learn and be equipped at the highest level. This group will go beyond just being mentors/mentees, to having a very intimate friendship built on the sharing of life together. For Jesus this number was three; for  many other great leaders, it is often only one or two at a time. 

After the commitment to pour fully into this small group, each leader should have another group around them (the 12) who are high-level leaders within the organization, and are therefore getting regular, ongoing, personal development, that is not intended for everyone in the organization. These men and women may not have full access to the leader’s life like the inner circle does, but they should have a high level of understanding as to how the organization functions and be given  some authority within the organization to lead various teams, projects, or divisions. 

Next, a great leader will still find ways to train and equip the next tier of leadership (the 72), to ensure success in their work, as well as giving regularly communicating vision, values and mission to the multitudes who make up the organization as a whole. These people may not have private meetings with the top leader very often, but he should at least know their names, what they are good at, and be building them up along the way. 

Finally, though the leader will be making his biggest investments into the 3, the 12, and the 72, it must remain a priority for him or her to regularly be casting the vision, demonstrating the values, and clarifying the mission priorities of the organization to the ‘multitudes’ who  work for the organization or have a stake in its success. Though the leader will not have the time or energy to be training these people one-on-one — which is the job of the 3, 12, and 72 — he or she should still see a personal need to invest in them as a group when time and resources allow. 

If a leader will develop this tiered structure of leadership development, and determine his or her personal level of investment in each group, the equipping given to each will be immensely greater than if the leader tried to treat everyone the same and give them equal time and training. 

The hard reality is that as leaders to go higher, the numbers get smaller. You cannot expect the multitudes to function at the same level as the inner circle, nor will they all have the same giftings and drive as those making up ‘the 12.’ You have to identify the right people to invest in at each level of leadership around you. 

A Note for Growing Leaders

While this principle definitely sounds unfair to someone wanting to grow in leadership, who may be one of the 72 or even just a face in the crowds, it is, nevertheless, true and necessary. What every person serving under a leader must come to terms with is that not everyone gets a seat at the front of the table. Demanding or usurping authority that is not given to you undermines the leadership you are trying to learn from. Submission means that we are willing to step up when called upon, and to step back otherwise. 

Learning to grow as a leader takes time and effort, not only on your part, but on those that will mentor you. We must either submit and step back sometimes, or find another leader to follow who will train us.

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© Anthony Scott Ingram 2019. All Rights Reserved.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

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(This post was originally published March 3, 2011. It has been revised and edited for reposting.)