Your people are your product.
Do you hire for fit or CV? Promote based on talent, or tenure?
Every director promotion and senior hire is a judgement about how someone will lead, sell and handle pressure. Yet most firms make it on tenure, or CV, and instinct. We add the missing layer. We show you the patterns someone runs and the dynamics those patterns create with others, so you know where the risks lie and where to probe or develop.
Grow with precision, not guesswork.
The cost of the wrong call.
Every hire, promotion and exit is an expensive people decision. Get it right and performance compounds. Get it wrong and the costs show up fast - the wrong fit, a premature promotion, a struggling leader left in place too long. You pay for it in churn, absence and leadership failure, directly impacting your P&L.
A bad hire costs 50–213% of salary - in replacement costs, lost productivity, and the disruption to a team while you find someone better suited. That's the cost of a decision made on a CV and a good interview. Get the hire right the first time, with deeper insight into their character and fit, and huge savings follow.
Every promotion is a bet that someone can lead others, not just deliver work - and Gallup's research suggests only 1 in 10 people naturally have the skills. Workplace relationships are already the leading driver of grievances; 54% in 2023 cited manager relationships directly. Promote on gut or tenure, and you've often just created a retention problem one level down.
The decision whether to develop or replace someone is crucial. 82% of managers are promoted with no formal training for the role — accidental managers, expected to lead without ever being taught how (CMI). We hone the talent you want to invest in, and help you see — early, and with evidence — when someone isn't going to get there in time, so you can make that call humanely.
The data for the right decisions
We combine accredited psychotherapists with our own technology to surface where the people risks are, and help change them.
We uncover how your people actually operate - under pressure, in conflict, in teams - and turn it into the evidence and support you need for every hire, promotion and development decision.
See the clash coming, before it costs you.
Make better calls, faster.
Book your demoInvest in your top talent for...
More revenue
— Harvard Business Review
High performing teams
— Charley Young MBE, Founder of The Girls Network
Thriving individuals
— Dave, 38, Partner.
— Peter Drucker, How to Make People Decisions, Harvard Business Review (1985)
We Specialise in Management Consultancies
Your people are the product
Your consultants sit inside client teams, often under scrutiny and at pace. How they handle conflict, feedback and pressure shapes the relationship as much as the work does. Spot the patterns that strain client relationships before they cost you a renewal.
Senior and lateral hires
The MD Pipeline
Making it to MD means more than delivering great work. It means leading teams, winning clients, and holding up under sustained pressure. Before you make the call, see who's ready to do, lead and sell, and who needs development first.
People who trust us
Gary West
CEO Citysprint
"We are now regularly talking openly about mindset, it's becoming part of our culture. The Circle Line know how to connect and talk to our people. They normalise the subject and ensure we see real uptake and benefit from our investment."
Richard Martin
Founder, The Mindful Business Charter
"I recently read The Circle Line's focus on the legal sector and knew at once that these were people who would be enriching and create a space where I would want to be and learn in."
Filipe Martins
VP People, Cutover
"The Circle Line has become part of the furniture and take-up is extremely high at 27%. We found The Circle Line offer a much more proactive and engaging approach."
Gary West
CEO Citysprint
"We are now regularly talking openly about mindset, it's becoming part of our culture. The Circle Line know how to connect and talk to our people. They normalise the subject and ensure we see real uptake and benefit from our investment."
Richard Martin
Founder, The Mindful Business Charter
"I recently read The Circle Line's focus on the legal sector and knew at once that these were people who would be enriching and create a space where I would want to be and learn in."
Filipe Martins
VP People, Cutover
"The Circle Line has become part of the furniture and take-up is extremely high at 27%. We found The Circle Line offer a much more proactive and engaging approach."
Our Products
Choose your package for every key leadership moment.
Hire
£1,500
Promote
£3,000
Develop Leadership Skills
£4,000
Develop Sales Skills
POA
Our Expertise
Our platform is built and delivered by accredited psychotherapists who've worked inside major organisations. We understand corporate culture from the inside - and we have the psychological tools to change it.
Philippa Richardson
Founder & Transactional Analyst Psychotherapist
The magic of The Circle Line is that we marry the key ingredients for sustainable high performance.
I founded The Circle Line following a career as a litigator at Dentons, head of marketing in the property development industry, and subsequent retraining as a psychotherapist. I hold a BSc (Hons) Psychology and P.g.Dip. in Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy, and built the platform to translate clinical-grade behavioural insight into tools organisations can actually use. The Circle Line's TA-based psychometric model draws on 70 years of empirically validated psychology - applied directly to leadership performance.
We help your leaders:
Grow revenue - improve money-making mentality and client relationship growth by identifying and changing the patterns that limit your sales ability.
Improve leadership - You manage processes, you lead people. Leadership is all about relationships. That's our bread & butter.
Maintain morale - our technology visualises the behaviour patterns across your leadership so you can see what's getting in the way.
Mel Lawrie
Leadership Coach & Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist
Mel is a Transactional Analyst psychotherapist, leadership coach and former Head of Learning & People Development.
Mel has ten years experience helping leaders to develop effective and inspiring leadership. Her passion for improving people’s lived experience at work draws on her therapy, coaching, and organisational development training and experience to help others consider their own organisation and their place in it. Mel brings decades of lived experience in both positive and more negative environments to her understanding of organisation dynamics, including leading IT programmes for the Scottish Government. Having stepped into senior leadership herself, she is well placed to support people in leadership roles.
In our experience...
Psychology at work
City law firms are some of the highest pressure, highest earning organisations on the planet. So they offer lots of cultural insights for any high performance company. Read Magazine
Luck of a saint
Emma Heal, MD of booming new brand Lucky Saint, explores the role of timing, connection and humility in business. Read Article
In the Financial Times
The founder of The Circle Line talks to the Financial Times about businesses embracing psychology at work. Read Article
Psychology at work
City law firms are some of the highest pressure, highest earning organisations on the planet. So they offer lots of cultural insights for any high performance company. Read Magazine
Luck of a saint
Emma Heal, MD of booming new brand Lucky Saint, explores the role of timing, connection and humility in business. Read Article
In the Financial Times
The founder of The Circle Line talks to the Financial Times about businesses embracing psychology at work. Read Article