Odiaka Gonzalez on Growth, People-Centered Leadership, and Turning Values Into Practice
For Odiaka Gonzalez, values aren’t something you simply define. They’re something you practice.
In a new interview with Bold Journey, Tilting Futures Chief Operating Officer Odiaka Gonzalez reflects on the family members who shaped his work ethic, his commitment to helping young people reach their potential, and the principles that guide how he approaches work, leadership, and community.
Drawing from more than 26 years in the social impact space, Odiaka shares three qualities he believes are essential for a fulfilling career and life: maintaining a growth mindset, taking a people-centered approach, and operationalizing your values.
That last principle is especially central to how he leads. Whether it’s creating habits that protect the relationships he values personally or building organizational practices that keep Tilting Futures’ values present in everyday work, Odiaka believes our priorities should be visible in how we spend our time and how we show up for others.
It’s an approach rooted in a simple purpose: supporting young people to reach their potential, building community, and being in service of others.
Read Odiaka’s full conversation with Bold Journey.
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About Tilting Futures
Tilting Futures prepares young people to lead change in a complex world by developing the capacities that make connection across difference possible. Since 2010, the organization has served more than 3,000 students. Its flagship program, Take Action Lab, is an accredited, semester-length program built on an evidence-backed curriculum that develops the durable skills employers, higher education, and civic institutions increasingly recognize as foundational, including agency, self-awareness, perspective-taking, communication across difference, sense of belonging, and the orientation toward purposeful action. Alongside its direct program work, Tilting Futures’ systems change work is focused on making this kind of intentional capacity development a standard feature of how we prepare young people for adulthood, in their communities, in college, and in career. Tilting Futures is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
