The Creative Making of Barack Obama

In the Inaugural festivities of the past week it has been interesting to note how, from varied corners of the globe -- Africa, the Islamic world, the Pacific rim, not to mention many sub-sectors of our own society -- people are seeing themselves reflected in the identity of our quintessentially American new president. From what I know of Mr. Obama’s biography, here’s what I find most inspiring in the phenomenon of the one-man melting pot who has attained our nation’s highest office: That a person with his variegated pedigree and transient upbringing, who might well have said “There’s nowhere that I belong,” chose instead to live by the conviction “Anywhere I go, I belong.” Obama is, in fact, a paragon of what Liz Lerman calls active belonging. And the “active” in active belonging requires more than mere conviction, as the career that led to the presidency attests. That career is a story of sheer will, pushback against rejection, and the calculated choice to belong and to appear to belong. It is through active belonging that Mr. Obama shaped himself into a masterpiece of self-invention.

At the risk of indulging in the new national pastime of projecting cherished personal values and aspirations onto our shiny new Chief Executive, I’m going to hazard an interpretation. Mr. Obama developed his capacity for active belonging in tandem with three qualities that make his leadership style especially refreshing: He listens, he learns, and he is remarkably free of defensiveness -- indeed the lack of defensiveness is, to my mind, the key to the “No-Drama Obama” mystique.

I won’t belabor the parallels between those leadership qualities and the values of the Critical Response Process. But I think it’s notable that Mr. Obama has explained his desire to hold onto his Blackberry as partly the need to bypass the presidential security bubble so that he can remain open to critique from people beyond his immediate circle of advisors. If he is sincere, it is a very hopeful sign, because now more than ever the Presidency is a work-in-progress. And as we know, a viable work-in-progress requires a good feedback system.

(A note about the photo: The Happy Dragon, above, is one of the characterful denizens of the Dance Exchange's hometown of Takoma Park, where he resides in a side yard just a few blocks from our headquarters. He regularly gets festooned for various holidays, and for the past week he's been sporting the Inaugural regalia shown in the picture, which I snapped on Friday morning.)