ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the popular narrative of Barack Obama's leadership. The opposition of the two popular cultural icons is played out in the unfolding Obama leadership narrative. Synthesizing some of the main narrative lines, the picture that emerges can be organized around a number of interrelated themes. Taken together, the strands of the popular narrative suggest, either directly or implicitly, the major outlines of Obama's role conception as president. For Obama, political affiliations, in fact almost all affiliations of any sort, are epiphenomenal—incidental artifacts easily overcome by rational discourse. The chapter provides that the ability to hold the centre can quite readily be viewed as a depressive position achievement. The metaphor of holding the centre—and it is of course a metaphor—has wide applicability. Leadership also requires, among other characteristics, drive, perseverance, creativity, vision, and technical competence, as well as other important capacities, depending on the context in which it is exercised.
