For some leaders, there’s something slightly unsettling about a team offsite. The very idea of bundling the top brass of a company into a remote location for two days brings with it a mix of anticipation and dread. They view it as an inconvenience – hours away from day-to-day operations, filled with what can feel like hollow presentations and group activities.

Recently, I encountered a group of leaders where a few were less than enthused about the idea. More specifically, some of them didn’t really see the point in being there at all. “I don’t have anything to do with product development,” said one. “I’m not in sales,” grumbled another. The finance director (FD), the HR director (HRD), and a few others questioned their roles in discussions that seemed outside their remit. “Surely, this is for the sales guys, the product people?” was the general consensus.

It’s a fair enough question – after all, why should someone focused on budgets or employee engagement be dragged into a conversation about product strategy or sales pipelines? But I’d argue that’s precisely why they should be there. Leadership offsites aren’t about dividing and conquering. They’re about coming together, blending perspectives, and creating something more than the sum of the parts.

The fallacy of narrow expertise

There’s a tendency – and it’s particularly strong in hierarchical organisations – to believe that only those directly involved in an area of the business should have a say in how it’s run. Product people talk about product. Salespeople talk about sales. Finance and HR? Well, they crunch numbers and handle people stuff in the background.

But this kind of thinking misses the point entirely. Yes, your finance director may not be an expert in product strategy, and your HR director might not be intimately familiar with sales targets. But what they bring to the table is a fresh pair of eyes and a different perspective.

Consider the FD. On the surface, you’d think they’d be concerned purely with profit margins and cost management. But the reality is that finance leaders often have a unique ability to ask the questions that no one else in the room will. They might see risks that the product team is blind to, or identify opportunities for investment that the sales team hasn’t considered. Finance is more than just numbers – it’s the lens through which the health of the business is measured. So, having the FD involved in product and sales strategy can help ground these discussions in financial reality, ensuring that bold ideas don’t lead to bankruptcies.

And what about HR? You could argue that HR is the beating heart of any organisation – the one function that has its finger on the pulse of morale, engagement, and culture. Product and sales strategies, no matter how brilliant, are meaningless without the people to execute them. Your HR leader can provide insights into workforce readiness, highlight potential skills gaps, and offer a perspective on how strategic decisions might affect team dynamics. It’s all well and good to devise a product strategy that requires a new skill set, but who’s going to implement that strategy if your HRD isn’t part of the conversation?

Avoiding the echo chamber

Another reason to include everyone in the offsite is that it helps avoid the “echo chamber” effect. This is when a small group of like-minded people huddle together and reinforce each other’s opinions until they’re convinced they’ve cracked the code to success. They emerge from the room confident they’ve nailed it, only to find that half the company disagrees, or worse, is totally disengaged.

By bringing in diverse perspectives you introduce a level of challenge and critique that’s essential to healthy decision-making. This doesn’t mean throwing a wrench into the gears or derailing progress; it means ensuring that all decisions are pressure-tested from multiple angles.

The best ideas often come from the most unexpected places. When you have a leadership team with a variety of backgrounds and specialities, you’re far more likely to get a holistic view of the business – one that takes into account the intricacies of finance, the importance of people, and the necessity of innovation.

Alignment and buy-in: the secret ingredients

Here’s the other thing. When you exclude certain functions from big-picture strategy discussions, you run the risk of creating disconnection and disengagement. If leaders aren’t involved in key decisions, they’re far less likely to feel any sense of ownership over the outcomes. And that lack of ownership can quickly filter down through their teams.

Alignment is about getting everyone on the same page – not just nodding along because the boss says so, but genuinely understanding and agreeing on the direction of the business.

If some leaders feel like they’ve been sidelined, they’re not going to be aligned. And if they’re not aligned, their teams won’t be either. The result? Friction, resistance, and a whole lot of inefficiency when it comes time to execute the strategy.

On the flip side, when you include everyone in the room, you create a sense of shared purpose. They’ll understand how their areas of expertise fit into the bigger picture. And when people feel included, they’re far more likely to give their full support – not just lip service, but real, actionable buy-in.

The offsite as a unifying force

At the end of the day, leadership offsites aren’t just about strategy – they’re about unity. They’re an opportunity to get the entire leadership team aligned not only on business goals but on how those goals will be achieved. Every department, every function, every leader has a role to play in the success of the business, and the offsite is the one place where they can come together to understand how those roles interconnect.

Their perspectives are crucial to creating a strategy that’s realistic, well-rounded, and executable. More importantly, their presence ensures that when it comes time to implement the strategy, the entire leadership team is moving in the same direction.

Because at the end of the day, strategy without alignment is just a bunch of ideas on paper. The offsite is your chance to make sure everyone is rowing in the same direction – and that, in itself, is reason enough for everyone to be there.