Raihl O’Malley: Shared Leadership, Youth Power & Creating Space for Change

Today on Ready: Leaders to Know, I sit down with Raihl O'Malley, Co-Founder, Director and Principal Consultant to Learning to Transform. Raihl grew up in Northfield, Minnesota, in a family where activism was part of everyday life, his mother protesting nuclear power, his father elected to public office as a teenager. But one of the most formative spaces in his life wasn’t a campaign or a classroom, it was a youth center run entirely by young people. There, Raihl learned what shared leadership looks like, chairing meetings, organizing events, and discovering that those most impacted by decisions should help lead them. That belief has guided his work ever since, from global studies and time living in Nicaragua, to training leaders and communities today. At the core of his work is a simple but radical idea: leadership isn’t about control, it’s about creating space for people to act together.