About Jeff Hayes

Leadership doesn’t get simpler over time.

Good leadership has less to do with having the right answers than with making sound decisions while things keep changing.

My work is about creating space to think without judgment, offering a clear mirror, and helping leaders find their way as work keeps changing.

Start here
  • What I help with: clarity, decisions, and navigating complexity without feeling overwhelmed.
  • How I work: calm, direct partnership; questions that surface what matters; practical next steps.
  • Best fit for: leaders carrying a lot, teams in transition, and organizations dealing with fast change.
What Working Together Looks Like

A thoughtful partner for meaningful work

For more than 30 years, I’ve worked with leaders and teams navigating change, complexity, and growth, across technology, finance, healthcare, and global organizations.

Human and pragmatic

Clients describe me as calm, curious, and direct. I listen carefully, ask thoughtful questions, and help people slow down enough to see what’s really happening.

I don’t bring pre-packaged solutions or formulas. Instead, I bring perspective, partnership, and deep respect for the reality you’re working within, helping you recognize the patterns shaping your work and build confidence that comes from awareness.

How I work

Working with leaders

Coaching vs advisory

My work with leaders takes one of two forms. Coaching helps you think more clearly and make intentional choices, and it rests on trust in your capacity to grow. Advisory support adds my own experience: context, honest feedback, and guidance when it’s useful. The Services page compares them in more detail.

Structure and flexibility

Leaders need both structure and flexibility. Structure gives you patterns, frameworks, and shared ways of working, but too much of it turns into rigidity and bureaucracy. Flexibility lets you respond to what’s needed in the moment, but too much of it brings inconsistency, missed commitments, and unnecessary chaos. The most effective leaders hold both. They set clear agreements and stay open to adjusting them as things change. My work helps you find that balance, using structure as a support, not a constraint.

Thinking partner, not just problem solver

As a coach, I’m a thinking partner who helps you slow down, reflect, and see your situation more clearly. As an advisor, I’m still a thinking partner, and I also step in to help solve problems when that’s useful. Either way, the goal is clear thinking, sound judgment, and forward movement.

Experience

Experience & Credentials

I founded AlignTech Solutions in 2008, working from Neenah, Wisconsin. Across more than 30 years as a software engineer, consultant, coach, and advisor, I’ve worked inside the kinds of organizations I now coach in.

My training spans organizational relationship systems coaching, executive coaching, and agile coaching. Alongside paid work, I’ve founded and hosted ORSC Without Borders, co-hosted the ICAgile Global Coaching Circles, and continue to offer pro bono coaching to non-profit leaders – ways of staying connected to the broader coaching community and giving back to it.

Since 2019, I’ve delivered 21 agile training cohorts for a single financial-services client – a seven-year engagement of 30 engineers per cohort, now extended to include working with AI tools.

Education

  • MS, Electrical Engineering, Northwestern University (Walter P. Murphy Fellow)
  • BS, Biomedical Engineering, Marquette University

 

Coaching

  • ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) – 500+ logged coaching hours
  • Certified Team Coach (CTC) – Scrum Alliance
  • ORSC-trained (completed ORSC modules; not ORSC-certified)

 

Agile Coaching & Training

  • ICAgile Certified Expert in Agile Coaching (ICE-AC)
  • ICAgile Authorized Instructor (ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF)
  • TBR Certified Trainer – Training from the Back of the Room (Sharon Bowman)

 

Project & Delivery

  • PMP – Project Management Professional