Planning Well Doesn’t Mean Leading Well

Back in the day, I had a Franklin Planner, a whiteboard calendar the size of Texas, and a Sharpie collection that could rival Hobby Lobby’s inventory. I planned everything—sermons, series, snacks, puppet practices, you name it. I even planned my planning time.

But one day, I had a lightbulb moment that hit me right between the three-ring binder and the Gantt chart:
Just because I planned well didn’t mean I was leading well.
Shocking, I know. I wanted to argue with myself. “But Jim,” I said, “your spreadsheet color-coding is top-tier!”
And it was.

But I also had volunteers who were confused, parents who felt out of the loop, and a team who could recite my plan but didn’t know how they fit into it.
A Good Plan Without Good Leadership is Just… Paper.

It’s easy to confuse planning with leading. But they’re not the same. Planning is important—absolutely. I believe in systems and structure (have you read STRETCH?). But if all I ever do is plan, I’m just organizing people’s time. Leading is about organizing their hearts.
Let me break it down like this:
Planning tells people what to do.
Leading shows people why it matters.
Planning is the map.
Leadership is the guide who walks it with them.

You Can’t Delegate Vision to a Calendar.
A calendar doesn’t inspire people. A Google Doc doesn’t cast vision. And a checklist can’t coach someone through their burnout. I learned that leading well means connecting, communicating, and caring—not just cranking out more detailed plans.
You ever try to follow GPS directions that are technically accurate but lead you straight into a lake? That’s what it’s like when a leader plans without leading. (Ask me how I know. That poor rental car.)
So What’s the Fix?

If you’re a planner like me, here are a few reminders that’ll help you move from planner-in-chief to leader worth following:
Talk to people more than you type.
Real leadership happens in conversations, not just in content.
Stop managing schedules—start mentoring people.
Invest in who your team is becoming, not just what they’re doing.
Revisit your “why” often.
If you haven’t said the vision out loud in the last week, go ahead and say it again today.

Evaluate more than events.
Ask your team how they’re doing, not just how the service went.
Make space for the Spirit.

Don’t get so married to your plan that you forget the Holy Spirit might want to interrupt it.

You can plan the perfect service, coordinate the cutest crafts, and schedule snack duty to the second—but if you’re not leading with heart, with purpose, and with people in mind, you’re just running a well-organized circus.

And trust me, I’ve been to enough circus-style ministry moments to know… you can have a great plan and still lose your monkeys.
So yes—plan well. But lead even better.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not about how good your plan looks—it’s about how well your people follow the God who called you all to it.