Leadership That Multiplies

“Skills matter, but character sustains influence”

Parashat Yitro is often remembered for the most dramatic moment in Jewish history, Matan Torah (Giving of Torah). Thunder. Lightning. Revelation. But before the Torah is given, something quieter and deeply practical happens: a conversation about leadership.

In Parashat Yitro, we see Moshe doing what many well-meaning leaders do, everything. He’s leading the people, judging their disputes, answering questions, carrying the emotional weight of an entire nation. From the outside, it looks like commitment. But Yitro sees something else.

Burnout.

Yitro tells Moshe something that every leader needs to hear at some point: This isn’t sustainable. Not for you, and not for the people. Yitro watches Moshe lead the people and says something striking. Yitro doesn’t praise him for his dedication. He warns him. “You will surely wear yourself out, both you and the people.” That line is powerful because it reframes how we think about leadership. Moshe wasn’t being lazy. He wasn’t being careless. He was being too responsible. And sometimes, that’s exactly the problem.

What Yitro introduces is not just delegation, it’s intentional leadership. And that’s exactly what Orrin Woodward talks about in Resolved: 13 Resolutions for Life. Leadership isn’t accidental. It’s a series of decisions made on purpose. One of the core ideas in Resolved is that leaders live by clear resolutions, not reactions. Moshe wasn’t lacking heart, he was lacking structure. Yitro teaches Moshe that leadership is not about carrying everyone on your shoulders. It’s about building a system that can carry people forward even when you step back. Yitro helps him shift from being a reactive leader to a resolved one.

Yitro tells Moshe to build leaders, people of character, integrity, and values, and trust them with responsibility. And Moshe listens. That mirrors Woodward’s emphasis on character-based leadership. Skills matter, but character sustains influence. Moshe stays the visionary, the teacher, the spiritual guide. But he no longer has to do it all alone. That may be the greatest leadership moment in the parasha. Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest prophet, takes advice from an outsider. No ego. No defensiveness. Just openness to truth. This teaches us that real leaders don’t need to have all the answers, they need to recognize good ones when they hear them.

Another powerful connection is the idea of leverage. In Resolved, leadership is about multiplying impact through people. Moshe trying to do it all limited the nation. Moshe empowering others allowed the nation to grow. When leadership is shared, everyone wins.

And then comes the most important detail: this happens before Matan Torah.

That’s not a coincidence. Before the Jewish people could receive the ultimate vision, they needed leadership systems strong enough to support it. Because Torah can’t exist in chaos. Divine values need human systems to support them. Inspiration without structure doesn’t last and Orrin Woodward teaches that vision without discipline collapses. Yitro teaches the same thing, values require structure to survive.

Parashat Yitro reminds us that sustainable leadership means:

Knowing your limits

Trusting others

Delegating responsibility

And creating space for growth, not burnout

Leadership isn’t about being indispensable. It’s about making others capable. And when leadership is built this way, the people are finally ready to stand together at Har Sinai, not exhausted, not overwhelmed, but prepared to receive something greater than any one person could carry alone.

Parashat Yitro reminds us that leadership isn’t about being the hero. It’s about being resolved enough to step back, trust others, and build something that lasts beyond you. Because the strongest leaders aren’t the ones who carry everyone, they’re the ones who teach others how to carry responsibility themselves.