“Coach to ALIGN” by Shaine Hobdy
Coach to ALIGN
Shaine Hobdy
Independently Published (2025)
ISBN: 979-8285309369
Reviewed by Scott Hall for Reader Views (12/2025)
In Coach To ALIGN: Building Empowered Teams Together the author, Shaine Hodby, articulates a framework that is designed to help managers become better leaders. It could be read concurrently and would make an excellent supplement to a week-long management workshop. The book is geared towards leaders and is designed to give them the tools to create a productive work environment.
Hobdy starts by mapping and explaining four critical personality types: feeler, thinker, controller, and entertainer. The idea is to help each team member understand the unique communication styles of their fellow workers. The author dives into how to recognize these diverse personalities as well as how they interpret and learn new things.
The book comes with extended information and a helpful personality calculator on the author’s website that calculates the personality type and the individual’s dominant traits. There are some similarities to color theory typing based on the work of Psychologist Dr. Carl G. Jung. The secret, of course, is identifying the personality type and Hobdy speaks to this throughout his book. He spends a significant amount of the book speaking about how to coach each of the four personality types so they can reach optimal performance.
The author includes helpful sample statements and questions to ask as well as walking through what is called the SMART goal criteria. It is about changing the culture and creating a culture of innovation and learning. At the end of each personality chapter, the author puts a handy matrix so employees can align their communication styles with those of differing types.
After thoroughly breaking down the personality types, the author dives into what is called the ALIGN Coaching model. The model, as the reader might expect, does align to an acronym. Hobdy also provides worksheets at the end of these chapters that help check off the different approaches to developing employees. He calls it the ALIGN Coaching Roadmap. According to the author, “It ensures that leaders can address each employee’s distinct developmental needs, making coaching more responsive and relevant.”
Coach To ALIGN works at getting to the root cause of behavior performance by suggesting who, what, when, why type of activities that are designed to bridge the gap between expected performance and actual performance. In the book, the author speaks about how an employee’s actual performance must align with measurement and manager agreed-to performance. Along the way the author provides helpful coaching and feedback discussion questions to help map the expected versus actual performance gap. Hobdy provides both qualitative and quantitative suggestions and includes some analysis measurement recommendations.
The author demonstrates the flexibility of the Coach To ALIGN framework as he speaks about On The Spot ALIGNment or OTSA and the ability to make immediate feedback adjustments. He deftly speaks about diversity in learning and how when we teach others, we are reinforcing our own understanding.
The Coach To ALIGN model and framework provides a helpful guidebook for employees and managers to engage with one another. Coach To ALIGN ultimately covers so much ground but remains conscious that how we learn is custom to each of us.