Shedding Light on Self-Awareness
As leaders, we often focus on achieving results and driving growth. An essential component of the growth equation is growing the people in our organisations and growing ourselves.
To do this we need to focus on developing and maintaining meaningful relationships with our team members, where we share information and connect to one another. This is where the Johari Window comes into play.
The Johari Window is a powerful tool for understanding the relationship between oneself and others.
It was developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955 to improve communication, teamwork, and trust.
The Johari Window is a framework that divides knowledge about oneself into four areas:
The goal of the Johari Window is to increase the size of the Open Area, thereby reducing the size of the Blind, Hidden, and Unknown Areas. Increasing the open area can be achieved through effective communication, feedback, and self-disclosure.
As leaders, we can use the Johari Window to improve our leadership style by being more self-aware and open to feedback. By understanding our Blind, Hidden, and Unknown Areas, we can work to improve our communication, increase trust, and build stronger relationships with our team members – the hallmarks of human-centred leaders.
Storytelling is also an effective tool for increasing self-awareness and building stronger relationships. As leaders, we can use storytelling to share our experiences, values, and goals with our team members. This helps create a shared understanding, builds trust between the leader and the team, and increases our open area. The more our open area increases, the greater congruence there is between how we see ourselves and how others see us – we act from a place of authenticity.
The Johari Window is a powerful tool for improving communication, teamwork, and trust. As leaders, we can use the Johari Window to become more self-aware and open to feedback, and we can use storytelling to build stronger relationships with our team members. Focusing on human-centred leadership, where the quality of our relationships lies at the heart of what we do, we can create a culture of trust, collaboration, and growth within our organisations.
Contact us to see how your organisation can develop your leadership practice.
The Core Story are innovators in the transformation of business performance enabling leaders to engage hearts and minds and bring strategy to life for everybody, everyday. We are an imaginative force transforming leadership. Specialising in human centered leadership and strategy, we partner with clients to establish their strategy story and bring it alive throughout the organisation.
The Johari Window is a framework for understanding conscious and unconscious bias that can help increase self-awareness and our understanding of others.
