I am a recent member of the Leadership Development fraternity.
After spending 25+ years in the space of Consumer Insights, Consumer Behavior Analytics, and Advanced Analytics before co-founding The Rejuvi Venture a few years ago with my colleague and partner, Regina Hepp, my proximity to leadership development was primarily via my lived experience building, leading, and developing high-performing teams.
When attempting to innovate and disrupt leadership development, being a lifelong student and soaking in as much as possible comes in handy 😊! This motivates me to be curious but, more specifically, in this case, led me to hear about it recently and then dig in and discover the model referred to as ‘Johari’s Window.’ This model is named by taking the first syllables from the names of Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. They were psychologists who devised the model in 1955 to improve communication and interpersonal relationships.
The model has four quadrants – each representing a different aspect of human personality and behavior:
Quadrant #1 represents behaviors one is aware of and the rest of the world is aware of as well. In other words, the “Open/Self-Known” quadrant.
Quadrant #2 represents behaviors one is unaware of but the rest of the world sees. This is the “Blind/Unaware” quadrant.
Quadrant #3 represents behaviors one is aware of, but the rest of the world is unaware of. Referred to as the “Hidden/Known Only to Self” quadrant.
Quadrant #4 represents behaviors one is unaware of, and the rest of the world is unaware of as well. The “Unknown/Unknown” quadrant.
The model's aim and purpose is to teach us how to expand the size of the “Open/Self Known” quadrant while reducing the other three (i.e., Blind, Hidden, and Unknown) quadrants to improve communication and interpersonal relationships. There is considerable research on this model, as you can well imagine. The results show that participants who received Johari's Window training and expanded their Quadrant #1 in relation to the remaining quadrants reported significant increases in self-awareness, self-disclosure, improved communication, relationship quality, reduced fear of public speaking, improved self-esteem, building trust, ability to identify career goals, etc.
This model is particularly interesting because it validates what we at The Rejuvi Venture are discovering as we work with leaders. Our work reinforces the notion that leadership excellence combines a set of leadership behaviors and business practices that drive sustained and outstanding business performance. We theorized, and are now finding evidence, that the presence of a ‘positive’ or a ‘negative’ gap in a given leader is equally detrimental to their growth and their ability to impact their organization’s performance. Here ‘gap’ is defined as the difference between how the world views the leader and how they view themselves. So, the leader who thinks they are the best thing from “sliced bread” is equally ineffective at growing themselves as a leader and their organization over the long term as those leaders whom everybody believes can actually “walk on water,” but they do not know they can.
In other words, a ‘well-calibrated’ leader, defined as one who has a very close alignment between how they view their own strengths and opportunities and how the rest of their world views their strengths and opportunities, has a big leadership engine. I.e., can haul larger and larger leadership loads over longer and longer distances!
So, what does this all mean in the context of Johari’s Window Model? When juxtaposed together, the Rejuvi approach gives us a reliable way to operationalize the reduction of quadrant #2, i.e., the “Blind/Unaware” quadrant. This is done by measuring Rejuvi’s leader behaviors and business practices and continuously calibrating the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ gaps via quick-to-insight patented analytics. Further, Rejuvi’s insight and intelligence platform collects data so elasticities can be developed between the alignment rate on these calibrations and its impact on top-line and bottom-line business outcomes.
As I said, being a lifelong student and soaking in as much as possible comes in handy when innovating and disrupting leadership development 😊!
Reach out if you want to learn more.
References:
Luft, J. and Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. Proceedings of the western training laboratory in group development. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles.
Luft, J. (1969). Of Human Interaction: The Johari Model. Mayfield Publishing Co.
Gerbing, D. W. (1976). A study of the Johari window model of interpersonal awareness. Human Relations, 29(4), 301-313.
Packer, L. E., & Pinto, M. B. (1982). The effects of Johari's window and feedback on the communication apprehension and self-esteem of public speaking students. Communication Education, 31(3), 225-233.
DeBusk, J. A. (1986). Johari's Window: A model for soliciting and giving feedback. Journal of Extension, 24(3), 11-13.
Gulati, R., & Chin, W. W. (1996). The Johari window model: A guide for effective interpersonal communication. Information Systems Management, 13(2), 50-56.
Hare, A. P., & Woods, D. R. (2005). Johari's Window and the role of feedback in management education. Journal of Management Education, 29(6), 853-867.
Yarwood-Ross, L., & Haigh, J. (2008). The Johari window: A useful tool for career development teaching. Journal of Career Development, 35(4), 411-422.
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