State a clear, specific purpose for a leadership away day before designing any part of the agenda.
Leadership & Management
Planning and Facilitating Leadership Team Away Days
Design leadership away days with a clear purpose, structured facilitation and follow-through, so they change decisions rather than filling a calendar slot.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Leadership away days often produce energetic conversation and a warm feeling that fades within days because the event was designed around a change of scenery rather than a specific decision the team needed to make. This course treats away day design as a discipline: starting from a clearly stated purpose, whether that is resolving a strategic disagreement, resetting team dynamics or making a genuine decision about priorities, and building the agenda, room layout and facilitation method around that purpose rather than a generic template. Participants learn to design pre-work that surfaces real issues before the day begins, choose facilitation techniques suited to the type of conversation needed, from structured decision-making to open dialogue about team dynamics, and manage the senior figures in the room whose seniority can otherwise dominate discussion. The course covers handling conflict that surfaces during an away day without letting it derail the agenda, and building a follow-through process that converts away day discussion into decisions with owners and deadlines rather than a set of notes nobody revisits. Participants design a full away day agenda for their own leadership team as the course's central exercise.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Design pre-work that surfaces real issues and disagreements before the away day itself begins.
Select facilitation techniques suited to the type of conversation the away day needs to produce.
Manage senior participants whose seniority could otherwise dominate or shut down open discussion.
Handle conflict that surfaces during the day without letting it derail the planned agenda.
Convert away day discussion into decisions with named owners and deadlines before the group disperses.
Design a follow-through process that keeps away day decisions visible in the weeks that follow.
Who Should Attend
Chief executives and senior leaders planning their own leadership team's away day.
Chiefs of staff and executive assistants organising the logistics and agenda for a leadership offsite.
Internal facilitators asked to run a leadership team's strategic or team-development away day.
Human resources business partners supporting leadership team effectiveness and offsite planning.
Organisational development specialists designing facilitation methods for senior team sessions.
External consultants preparing to facilitate an away day for a client's leadership team.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Clarifying Purpose Before Designing the Agenda
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Defining a Specific Purpose
- Interview the leadership team's sponsor to identify the real reason an away day is being called.
- Distinguish an away day meant to resolve disagreement from one meant to reset team dynamics or relationships.
- Reject a generic away day template until the specific purpose and desired outcome are clear.
- Set a single measurable outcome the away day must achieve before it can be judged successful.
Session 2Designing Pre-Work That Surfaces Real Issues
- Design confidential pre-work, such as one-to-one interviews, that surfaces issues participants will not raise openly at first.
- Use pre-work findings to shape the agenda around the team's actual tensions rather than assumed ones.
- Brief the sponsor honestly on difficult themes emerging from pre-work before the day itself.
- Decide which pre-work findings should be shared with the whole group and which need careful framing.
02Choosing and Applying Facilitation Techniques
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Matching Technique to Conversation Type
- Select structured decision-making techniques for away days focused on resolving a specific strategic choice.
- Select open dialogue and dynamics-focused techniques for away days aimed at rebuilding team trust.
- Design small-group and whole-group segments so the format suits the sensitivity of each topic.
- Avoid importing a facilitation technique wholesale without adapting it to the team's specific culture.
Session 2Managing the Room and Senior Voices
- Set ground rules that prevent the most senior person in the room from closing down discussion early.
- Use techniques such as silent writing or round-robin input to surface views before open debate begins.
- Read the room during the day and adjust the plan when energy or engagement drops.
- Intervene diplomatically when one voice is dominating at the expense of others in the room.
03Handling Conflict and Difficult Dynamics
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Working with Conflict as It Surfaces
- Distinguish productive disagreement that should be allowed to run from destructive conflict that needs managing.
- Use facilitation techniques that separate the issue under discussion from personal attacks between participants.
- Decide when to address conflict openly with the group and when to take it into a side conversation.
- Keep the agenda on track without suppressing legitimate disagreement that the away day exists to resolve.
Session 2Protecting Psychological Safety
- Set norms that make it safe for participants to challenge the chief executive or most senior leader present.
- Recognise signs that participants are self-censoring and adjust the format to draw out honest views.
- Close difficult sessions in a way that leaves relationships intact even where disagreement remains.
- Debrief with the sponsor after difficult sessions to plan any necessary individual follow-up.
04Converting Discussion into Decisions and Follow-Through
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Closing with Decisions, Not Just Notes
- Build decision points into the agenda so the day produces choices rather than only conversation.
- Capture each decision with a named owner and a deadline before participants leave the room.
- Test emerging decisions for genuine commitment rather than polite agreement in the room.
- Summarise outcomes in a short document the whole team can recognise as an accurate record.
Session 2Sustaining Momentum After the Away Day
- Design a follow-through process that reviews away day decisions at a defined point after the event.
- Assign someone to track commitments made during the away day until they are visibly closed out.
- Communicate away day outcomes to the wider organisation where relevant, without overselling the day itself.
- Evaluate whether the away day achieved its stated purpose and capture lessons for the next one.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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