Presence Podcast - Episode 6: Exploring Ourselves through the Johari Window

In this episode, Ali and John explore a classic awareness tool called the Johari Window and how we can use the the panes of that window to frame the impacts of our behaviors. We also begin discussion of Internal Awareness, which help us understand what we need to be "self-aware" about. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Hi there everyone and welcome to the Presence Podcast. I'm John Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence. And I'm joined by my co-host for the Presence Podcast, Allie Carson, founder and CEO of Move Air Coaching. Allie, good to see you. How are things going? Things are going really well, John. How about you? I'm doing good. And I'm super excited to delve back into what it means to build the principles of Aristotle's ethos into our leadership presence. So we talked about in episodes four and five. Ethos really is the first step into prestige-based leadership presence, developing inner character, integrity, and authenticity as the foundation of a leader's credibility and influence. Our ethos is defined by how the world around us experiences our leadership behaviors in everyday situations. If you think about it, Allie, ethos really is about being and becoming. It's about being the best leader we can be now in the moment and becoming an even better leader as we grow into the future. And Allie, as you like to remind us, it's about doing this intentionally and proactively.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

It's pretty amazing about how those two words keep coming up.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

They do. And what I really love with this whole concept is it's it's very grounded in a growth mindset, right? Which is so critical to so much of the work that we do in leadership development. So we spent the last two episodes talking at length about the first step in ensuring that our teams and how those we partner with across the organization can see an effective ethos in our lives. We talked about gaining human awareness as the precursor to gaining self-awareness, which actually helps us understand what we need to be self-aware about. And that's where we're going to pick up on our discussion today. If you happen to miss our discussion about human awareness, we invite you to go back to episodes four and five before you dive into this episode, as that may provide some helpful context, because we're going to be expounding on many of those aspects as we begin our discussion of self-management, which includes self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yep, that's right. So to get started in our discussion about self-management, I want to introduce one of my very favorite leadership tools called the Jihari Window, which is a psychology-based framework developed by Joe Loft and Harry Ingham way back in 1955. Now, Ali, you might be surprised to learn that Johari is not an ancient Greek word that describes some aspect of our inner self. It simply takes the first couple of letters of its developer's first names, Joe and Harry, and make it Johari. So interesting. I never knew that. Yeah. So the Johari window can be used to enhance awareness of our behaviors and their outcomes by placing those behaviors into one of four quadrants: open, blind, hidden, and unknown. Sounds kind of cryptic, doesn't it? These four quadrants, like four panes to a glass window, can help leaders gain an understanding of what those around them can see or not see in their leadership behaviors and what they themselves can see or not see in their own behaviors. You can access a copy of the Johari window on the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence website. In the menu, click on podcast and then click the document link under episode six. If you can't download that document during our real-time discussion, you can follow along and I'll explain each of the quadrants. Then you can look at the document later because I know that's how you'd love to spend your free time. So just so you can visualize in your mind's eye, if you're not used to or or you're unfamiliar with the Jihari window, it's set up like most four-square models with a vertical and horizontal line. The vertical line indicates the behaviors that others see or don't see from us, while the horizontal line indicates the behaviors that we see or don't see in our own selves. So the first quadrant, which is the upper left part of the diagram, is called open or the arena, because it represents behaviors that are known and seen by both us and by the world around us. Generally speaking, the arena quadrant describes transparent behaviors and open communication. The leaders' behaviors are usually positive or at least not negative behaviors that leaders can feel safe and revealing, believing that these behaviors will cause no harm, at least on the surface, and make people feel good or safe or content about their behaviors as a leader. In other words, most quadrant one behaviors are usually socially accepted by ourselves and those around us. However, it's really important to know that even though most quad one behaviors are acceptable, that doesn't necessarily make them effective in leading the team towards creating the greatest level of value, which of course is the purpose of a leader. We'll talk more about that principle as we go along. However, it's important to note that there actually are times when leaders can exhibit quadrant one behaviors that they feel are perfectly fine and appropriate, but that unknowingly make others feel comfortable or irritated or upset, or perhaps just thinking that you're a little weird. For example, I might think that I have a sharp and quick sense of humor that loosens up those around me and makes me seem likable. However, my team might at times think that my humor is silly or misplaced, or they just might think I'm not very funny. In that example, my sense of humor becomes an irritant to them or something that those around me roll their eyes about. Not that I actually have experienced that. In a case like this, a quadrant one behavior can be known to all, but the impact of that behavior might actually be a blind spot. And we'll talk more about blind spots more specifically in a couple of minutes. But there are other times when a leader displays a quad one behavior that they actually know might make others feel uncomfortable or threatened, but they just don't care. For example, a leader might perfectly understand that a certain aspect of their personality might make others feel intimidated or less than in certain situations. And they sort of like that kind of power. So they continue in those behaviors even when they might prove disengaging or even destructive over time. So we need to understand that quadrant one is usually a good place. It demonstrates transparency, but it can have some unhealthy patterns in certain situations. And Allie, I think both of us have witnessed leaders who have proactively used bad behaviors to reach a certain outcome, in which case they need to contact Mobile Coaching right away.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Unfortunately, you are correct. We've both seen that in action. So let's move down to the quadrant two in the Johari window, which is the lower left-hand corner. Now, this is called the hidden section, or what some people refer to as the facade. This is the place where leaders know something to be true about themselves, but they are able to successfully hide that characteristic or behavior from others, at least for a little while. This is actually pretty normal in some respects. We all have those kind of quirky or weird things about ourselves that we don't necessarily want others to find out about. But we need to be careful that we are not covering up something essential about our leadership ethos that is unhealthy or that could cause distress if it was discovered. If we feel tempted to cover up an unhealthy behavior, we would probably be much better off by dealing with it and eliminating it rather than carrying it around as some sort of unseen stressor on our lives. Sometimes covering things up can just be exhausting. And then there's the truth that over time, most people who follow us closely, like our team that reports to us or close colleagues, they may find out what we don't want them to know about ourselves anyway, because you can only keep up the facade for so long. The facade is also where we see people putting up fronts. So, in other words, our outer behaviors cover up a contradictory inner feeling. This is kind of where you might see people talking about kind of fake it till they make it. So we might be, say, going through a stressful time where things are crashing in on us and we maybe feel anxious or even fearful inside, but we try to portray to the world that everything's fine. No big deal, right? That's an example of a front. Another example, say we may be carrying around a doctor's diagnosis in our minds, but we don't want to worry anyone else about it again, because no big deal. So we put up that facade. Leaders put on fronts frequently, and sometimes that is appropriate. That's the right thing to do. But carrying around a lot of internal baggage can be a huge stressor in and of itself. It usually helps to have at least one person or someone in the loop about what's really going on in our lives. So we actually could be in quadrant one with some behaviors to some people and in quadrant two with others, kind of depending on the situation. That's some of the nature of life. Sometimes it can be a little bit complicated. The other thing we want to call out about quadrant two is that it can mask some darker behaviors as well. And we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this. We each may have certain motives or plans for the team that we would rather keep under wraps for the present, because if the team knows about them, they may become disengaged. And again, I think we've both seen these types of situations. A leader really needs to be very careful about situations such as these, because when those hidden plans are fully revealed or implemented, teams can feel betrayed or doubtful about your intent, which can lead to a major breakdown in trust. And that can put a serious dent in your prestige-based presence. And I know, John, I can think of times whenever leaders may need to do this because there's information that they aren't at liberty to share with their teams. Sometimes in the role of a leader, you're privy to information that you must keep confidential because that's just the expectation that it's a change management thing or something else like that that you have to do. And so recognizing that it needs to be maybe a temporary type of situation can help too.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

And I think a leader has to be wise enough to recognize exactly how to deal with those kinds of situations. So you don't, you know, do you just not even bring it up uh at all? Or do you tell the team, hey, something's going on, you may be hearing a buzz or whatever, and uh I will let you know as soon as I can about what it is, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So it's such a challenge for leaders to narrow in on what is that appropriate level of transparency for the situation at hand that helps them maintain their authenticity without potentially creating a risk around information getting out that really shouldn't be at the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Yep. Okay, so moving across to the third quadrant of the window on the bottom right is the unknown space, which represents, well, unknown information, behaviors, feelings, or talents that aren't there for everybody and even ourselves to see yet. This area signifies untapped potential, latent abilities, or repressed feelings that neither the individual themselves nor those around them are aware of quite yet. This is a mysterious area that contains things that just have not emerged into a conscious state, but probably will at some point. For example, who would have known when he was a teenager that Bruce Wayne would eventually become Batman or that Jack Napier would become the Joker? So quadrant four would be what Shakespeare referred to as the undiscovered country, just those things about ourselves that are not apparent yet. Then we move up to quadrant four, the upper right-hand corner, where we consider those aspects of our behaviors that are seen by others but not seen by ourselves. In other words, they are blind spots to us. This quadrant absolutely represents the biggest threat and the biggest opportunity for a leader. These are behaviors that we have no idea we even engage in, or the impact that those behaviors have on others. And as we mentioned earlier, sometimes we can actually engage in behaviors that we are aware about, quadrant one, we're just blind to the impacts of those behaviors. These could be behaviors that exhibit poor communication, a lack of empathy or respect, overconfidence or resistance to change. A prime example of a quad four behavior would be an unconscious bias that we're carrying around with us. Whether that bias is racial, religious, gender-driven, or personality driven, the behaviors that are generated by subconscious or unconscious biases can be very hurtful and damaging to those around us, and depending on the situation, might even be unethical or illegal. These blind spots can erode trust and trigger disengagement and often go uncorrected. In fact, research indicates that without the proper tools and frameworks in place for personal growth, 84% of leaders fail to improve blind spots even after feedback has informed them of those issues, which proves, by the way, that awareness means nothing without actual change. Blind spots can absolutely pose a threat or risk to our leadership ethos and effectiveness, and perhaps even our leadership viability. They are like landmines on a battlefield. We can't see them, but they can blow up suddenly without warning. And to make matters worse, in many situations, a leader's team members may be reluctant or even fearful to tell the leader about their blind spots because they don't want to deal with the potential blowback. That's why most leaders must actively solicit feedback and create a culture where team members feel comfortable being candid about a leader's behaviors. And while all four of the quadrants of the Jihari window really need to be managed by the leader, this blind spot area is the one that really needs to grab our attention as we talk about self-management. So, why do we spend time talking about the Jihari window and its four quadrants? Because it takes the need for self-management as a leader out of the realm of the psychological and theoretical and demonstrates that our behaviors, the good, the bad, and the ineffective, all have very real impacts on our teams, our colleagues, and on our own leadership presence. I think it helps to keep the jihari window front and center in our minds as we move forward in our discussions about self-management. So, Ali, with all of that in mind, I think this is a good place for us to understand exactly what we mean by self-management and how we can adopt it as a leadership practice.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Absolutely. So self-management is defined as the ability to intentionally and proactively create frameworks and guardrails for our thoughts, opinions, words, actions, and behaviors that steer us away from ineffective and damaging behaviors and toward behaviors that align with our values, beliefs, convictions, and that create outcomes that produce the greatest level of value. That is where we want to be, assuming, of course, that our values, beliefs, and convictions represent what we feel is the best course of action for us to take as leaders of people and leaders within our organization. So self-management is all about creating those frameworks and guardrails to keep us on track with who we want to be. And there are three components of self-management that we need to talk about. First, there's self-awareness, which is essentially asking the question what are the specific mindsets and behavioral tendencies that make me successful? And those that keep me personally from creating the best version of me. Second, we have self-reflection, which asks the questions, what are the specific impacts of my strengths and flaws on myself and on what I'm trying to accomplish? And also on others around me. It also asks, which of my current behaviors do I need to stop? Which do I need to continue? And what new behaviors do I need to start in order to be more effective? And third, we have self-discipline, which asks, what are those concrete steps that I need to take to ensure that I will eliminate ineffective behaviors and the dissonance that they may cause and replace them with effective behaviors that lead to success. Of course, we begin our conversation around self-management with self-awareness, but it's important to know up front that all three of these ingredients, self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-discipline, are critical to a leader's self-management. Self-awareness seems to get all the attention, as I think we've talked about before. But John, as you mentioned a couple minutes ago, it's really just that head knowledge until we truly reflect on the implications and have the discipline to do something with that self-awareness. So before we jump into our definition of self-awareness, here are some, I think, rather challenging statistics. Research shows us that roughly 95% of organizational leaders feel that they are very self-aware. However, that same research actually tells us that only about 10 to 15% of us are truly self-aware. And that's a really big gap. That's quite a discrepancy that we have. But my gut and my experience in working with leaders makes me think that this is very true for reasons that we're going to get into in a few minutes. So if you think you don't need this conversation about self-awareness, then it's possible that you may be like many of us who think we're very self-aware, but may not be as fully self-aware or sufficiently self-aware about what you really need to know about being self-aware, if that'll make sense. So what is self-awareness? We're going to start with a simple definition of what it is and what it isn't, and then build from there. The short answer is that self-awareness is the ability to look at ourselves honestly and objectively in order to understand our attitudes, beliefs, dispositions, and behaviors, and begin to consider the impacts that those aspects of ourselves have on our effectiveness as a leader. Self-awareness is not many things. First of all, it is not self-hate. It's not self-degradation or self-pity or self-blame. It is not believing that you are the root cause of all the world's problems, because in fact, you are not even the cause of all the problems that you're dealing with. Self-awareness means that we are aware of both the good and the not so good things about ourselves, and that we don't get carried away with pride for the good, nor really down and discouraged because of the not so good. It's kind of that balanced picture and understanding that we are, in fact, human.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And you know, Allie, that really is an issue with some people when they start getting down to the brass tacks of self-awareness. They start blaming themselves for everything. And that just is not very healthy. So we really need to avoid that.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Absolutely. And I've seen that with my clients again and again. So I'm glad we're addressing it here. Now let's go a little bit deeper with some truths that we need to know about being self-aware. The first thing we need to understand right up front is that there are actually two dimensions to self-awareness. The first dimension is an internal self-awareness or that self-discovery, which is what I perceive to be true about myself and whether that perception is aligned with who I want to be. The second dimension is an external self-awareness, which is knowing what others perceive me to be and whether that perception is aligned with their expectations. And as we've already pointed out with the Dohari window, there can often be a significant discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how others experience us. And this bifurcation is exceptionally important for leaders to understand because self-awareness covers both. It covers who we think we are internally and what those around us experience us to be externally. So a few more things we need to consider about awareness before we get into the specifics. We need to understand that as human beings, our Johari window presents a mixed bag of behaviors, both the good and the not so good, to the people around us, and it provides both positive and negative experiences for them. We can simultaneously be helpful and obstructive, encouraging and frustrating, kind and disparaging. It's also really important for leaders to understand this. Awareness is about knowing what our mixed bag of behaviors looks like to those around us. And frankly, that process can sometimes be a little painful. It may not be things that we want to learn about ourselves. And because we are a mixed bag, we can say that some of our personal attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors contribute significantly to creating the greatest level of value for the organization and the people around us. There are some mindsets and behaviors that are neutral, and there are some that actually detract from the value that we could potentially. Provide. And awareness helps us understand which is which for each of us. And here's what it really comes down to in reality. As leaders, we have a responsibility to reach a level of self-awareness so that we can be objective about where we are effective, where we fall short, in the general impact our words and behaviors have on the people around us. We can never really hide behind this premise of how was I supposed to know that what I said would have that kind of impact? The straight answer here is you're supposed to know. As a leader in the 21st century, you're supposed to know the impact that you're having. So there's not really an opt-out clause for leaders when it comes to self-awareness. And that can be difficult, especially when it comes to some of those blind spots that we talked about a few minutes ago. And one last thing on this, John, and then I promise I'll get off my totebox. Leaders must understand that the need for self-awareness will likely never go away in an organizational setting or any other setting in our lives. And as we'll see, we each have plenty to learn and relearn about ourselves to keep us on our toes for the rest of our lives. It's a continuous journey.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yeah, I can vouch for that. So let's explore internal self-awareness, which, as Ali mentioned, is about what I perceive to be true about myself and whether that perception is aligned with reality and with who I want to be. We'll just touch on the beginnings of internal awareness here and then dive more into it in our next episode. As one of my favorite young writers and essayest, Nicole Rapalli, has said, knowing yourself is the foundation of strong character, purpose, and authenticity. It's only when you understand who you are, not necessarily who the world thinks you are, that you're ready to lead. And then Nico goes on to say, knowing who you are requires an accurate understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, values, beliefs, motivations, and desires. Developing these personal insights provides the foundation of all successful leaders. That really is the essence of internal self-awareness, but it carries with it a fundamental problem. The problem is that because of the influence of hardwired mindsets and behavioral systems, most of us will never be able to fully understand ourselves rationally and objectively through the lens of the biases of our own default thinking observations and analysis. You see, our own default thinking brings with it a sense of false normalcy about who we are, what we do, and what we say. It's what the experts call normalcy bias. In other words, the same hard wiring that's the basis of our default thinking can also cause us to believe that our preferred ways of doing things are actually the same ways that most normal people would act and think. And in any one given situation, we might be absolutely right. But then again, in any given situation, we might be 180 degrees off. This our way of doing things is normal thinking has been around since Adam and Eve pled their case about eating the forbidden fruit in the garden. And it's alive and well today in politics, business, religion, and just about any other area of human life. Just think of the last politician interview you watched or heard. You might have heard that politician say something like, What Americans are really looking for is, and then they just fill in the blank with whatever policy they happen to support. That's normalcy bias. So here's the point: if we're going to engage in objective, reality-based internal self-awareness, we will need to dig beneath the surface of normalcy bias and become very curious, very thoughtful, and very willing to seek out who we really are, warts and all, and how who we are determines how we lead. We referred to this in our last episode as our unique ethos story, which is all about our entire package of behaviors and how it presents to the world around us. To help us with this self-discovery journey, we're going to take a look at a second document under this week's episode on our podcast website entitled My Internal Self-Awareness Inventory. As you can see, this document is a framework that covers all the different aspects of how a leader can drill down to a deeper internal self-awareness, including the six My Ethos Behavioral Triggers, our unique hard and soft wiring, the PFC amygdala battle, and our unique brain beasts driven by victimhood. It even has the four windows of the Johari window included. If we were able to truly know, understand, and articulate the current state of each of those behavioral triggers in our lives, that would mark a substantial increase in our self-awareness. But here's the thing that we must remember and keep reminding ourselves over and over again. Those behavioral triggers are not just clean, pristine, and objective. Behaviors are not something our brain rolls out as singular events for each moment we encounter. Those behaviors are significantly impacted and influenced by the unique hard and soft wiring that has occurred from events in our lives over the years and have pre-formed and pre-shaped our behaviors for that next moment we encounter. Knowing that truth is vital to self-awareness. So, with that in mind, we need to expand our self-awareness landscape to include those behavioral triggers plus the ways in which those behaviors have been wired through our life circumstances to produce our go-to behaviors, those automatic responses to life situations that become our default way of looking at the world and dealing with the world. Now, just to clarify, this document does not represent a process map for what comes first, second, or third. This is a content model. It's a simplified go-to resource that helps us understand what we need to be self-aware about. It can prompt us to ask the right questions in the right areas. And it covers all the areas that we've talked about in our discussions on human awareness and transitions those ideas to our own patterns of behavior. But just because the document defines content and not process, that doesn't mean that we are without process in the journey to internal self-awareness. And we're going to dive into these content areas on my self-awareness inventory and a few process steps that can complete internal self-awareness in our next episode. So, Allie, thanks once again for your thoughts and ideas and tell us once again how people out there can get in touch with the great work that you do at MoveAir Coaching.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Absolutely. So you can find us online at www.moveaircoaching.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn at Ali Carson and MoveAir on Instagram and LinkedIn at MoveAirCoaching.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

All right. And thanks once again to all of you for listening and learning along with us. Of course, we're always interested in continuing these discussions with you in person. So please feel free to reach out and connect with us at the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence at Iolp.net. And just a reminder that everything that you hear on today's episode is part of our presence program for leaders. I'd love to set up some time with you to talk more about how presence can change the landscape of leadership in your organization. And be sure to join us for our next episode of the Presence Podcast. Until then, take care of yourself and lead well.