Bespoke Leadership Psychology

Lofthouse Stauffer Kruse is a boutique leadership psychology consultancy for businesses who want to go beyond traditional leadership and lead with both compassion and impact. Our work is grounded in psychological depth, helping people understand not just what they do, but why they do it, so that change is meaningful and lasting.

Leadership development often focuses on what leaders know. We focus on what happens under pressure: the habits, blind spots and patterns that shape how leaders actually perform. Bringing clinical psychology into the boardroom, we combine therapeutic expertise with systemic thinking to understand people, relationships and organisations. Leadership development with depth - compassionate, relational and built for performance.

For founders and start-ups

You're going into business with someone and want to get the partnership right from day one.
You’ve built something great as co-founders but the relationship now feels harder than the business.
The company is growing faster than its founders.

For established businesses

Your senior team agrees in the room, then unravels outside it.
You're appointing co-CEOs, a job-share or a new CEO and chair and want the partnership to work from the start.
A leader is brilliant on paper but keeps getting in their own way.
Your culture talks about compassion and wellbeing, but behaviour at the top tells a different story.

If any of these feel familiar, let's talk.

Sören Stauffer-Kruse and Dr. Joanna Lofthouse

About Us

Lofthouse Stauffer Kruse was founded by Joanna and Sören. We are two consultant psychologists,with a lens on leadership and co-leadership, who have spent our careers understanding what drives human behaviour.

We work with what's beneath the surface: the unconscious patterns, relationship dynamics and unspoken rules that shape how people lead, decide and work together, for better or worse.

At the heart of our work is a simple belief: the health of any business is inseparable from the quality of the relationships within it.

Our approach brings together deep clinical expertise and creative curiosity. It's rooted in psychological therapy and systemic thinking, understanding how relationships and groups shape the people in them. It invites reflection, strengthens connection and supports genuine change, helping people and businesses thrive from the inside out.

Dr Joanna Lofthouse and Sören Stauffer-Kruse are Consultant Psychologists, Counselling Psychologists and Therapists with over 25 years each of experience of working with individual clients, couples, teams ,and businesses. They are specialists in co-founder relationships with a passion for integrating Psychological Therapy with Leadership Psychology to build genuinely compassionate and successful leaders.

Why psychologists? Most leadership coaches are trained in coaching models. We specialise in how people think and feel, backed by over 25 years of clinical practice. That means we notice what others miss.

Business Leaders

How we can help

Our understanding of what it takes to lead well has changed dramatically in recent years. Futurist Jamais Cascio describes today's world as BANI: brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible.

Just think what that asks of leaders, the courage, compassion and self-awareness to help their teams face the real challenges of the modern workplace.

We work with you to:

Uncover what's really holding you back. Identifying the hidden patterns and dynamics that stop good people and teams from thriving.

Strengthen your partnerships at the top. Helping co-founders, co-CEOs and leadership pairs build a working relationship strong enough to carry the business.

Build a leaders style that stays steady under pressure. Developing self-awareness, reflection and compassion as practical leadership skills.

Create a culture people want to belong to. Cultivating trust, authenticity and purpose that strengthen relationships inside and outside your business.

Make the change stick. Creating a living, evolving culture that sustains wellbeing, performance and success long term.

Our Approach

No slide decks. No off-the-shelf modules. We work live, with the people in the room and whatever they bring.

We build more conscious, compassionate and courageous leaders. People and partnerships who really know themselves: what they uniquely bring, where they get in their own way, and who are considerably harder to derail.

Seeing what's really going on. We start by understanding the patterns, relationships and behaviours that drive, or disrupt, collaboration and performance. Through conversations, observation and psychological assessment, we help you see your leadership and your team clearly, often for the first time.

Coaching with psychological depth. One-to-one and paired coaching for leaders. Grounded in clinical insight, it helps you grow in self-awareness, judgement and presence, and handle the moments that matter.

Workshops that shift perspective. Thought-provoking, practical sessions for leadership teams, built around what we've learned about your organisation. We turn psychological insight into concrete, usable changes in how you lead and work together.

Strategy for lasting change. We help you design a practical plan for growth that sustains wellbeing, engagement and performance over the long term, and becomes part of how your business works.

Food for thought. We also give keynotes and bespoke talks, bringing psychological depth (and a little healthy provocation) to conferences, leadership offsites and team events.

What clients say

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Co-leaders