The Hidden Pearls in the Unknown Area of your Johari Window

When Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham came up with a novel way to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others in 1955, they focused on two essential dimensions: what is known to self (on the vertical), and what is known to others (on the horizontal). This cross-hatch then formed four quadrants that they called a window, the Johari Window.

The resulting quadrants are:

1. Top Left - Open Area ('The Arena'): This is the area of yourself that you and others know about. It can include things like your skills, talents, interests, and personality traits.
2. Top Right - Blind Area ('The Blind Spot'): This is the area of yourself that others know about, but you do not. It includes things that you do or say that others notice, but you are unaware of -- or choose to remain unaware of (think denial).
3. Bottom Left - Hidden Area ('The Fa?ade'): This is the area of yourself that you know about, but others do not. It includes things that you keep private, such as your fears, weaknesses, and secrets, or other things you consciously choose to keep hidden.
4. Bottom Right - Unknown Area ('The Pearl'):?This is the area of yourself that you and others do not know about. It includes things about yourself that you are not aware of, and that others are not aware of.

Generally speaking, the advice most often dealt out to leaders is to seek as large an open area (Arena) as possible, as it tends to facilitate the healthiest relationships. The two basic mechanisms for this are more self-disclosure (to reduce the Fa?ade element, be more open and transparent) and seeking more feedback (to help uncover and mitigate against Blind Spots).

It's solid and helpful advice for most all leaders and will certainly help nurture better self-awareness through the improved relationships more self-disclosure and feedback will generate in team settings.

That said, our "unknown area" is also a space of wonderful potential, fittingly called The Pearl because, like a pearl in an oyster, it can hold undiscovered aspects of our personality and potential. It can include hidden talents, capabilities, or feelings that neither we as individuals nor others are aware of. These unknown aspects of ourselves can be revealed much like a pearl that emerges after time within its oyster shell.

I have a bit of a theory that an over-abundance of self-disclosure and feedback can potentially be somewhat unhelpful, and even harmful to The Pearl. We can share ourselves into a bit of a leadership straightjacket, and feedback ourselves into a state of almost 'always on' reactionary reputation management.

Discovering more of ourselves in The Pearl area calls for self-discovery, exploration, experimentation, new experiences, introspection and critical reflection. Some of that can involve disclosure to and feedback from others, and some of it can't.

You'll discover some of it on a walk or hike. Or by journaling. Or via something like a reverse-mentoring arrangement. Doing something to deliberately put yourself in a completely new learning zone. Travelling on your own. Turning off the GPS, adding an hour to the expected travel time and seeing where you land. Taking something you know really well and mashing it up with something absolutely new and novel to you.

Or acting your way into a new way of thinking instead of thinking your way into a new way of acting (as one of my favourite leadership experts, Herminia Ibarra, advocates ).

Then writing it all down or capturing it as a voice recording.

In essence, some of it can only be discovered in and by your self.

Hidden pearls, waiting to be discovered.

This is a?Leader TWIG ?- the concept of (a)?growing something new?(a new awareness, skill or 'branch' to what you currently already know) but also (b) becoming equipped to 'catch on', realising or suddenly understanding something that is in fact right in front of you in the performative leadership moment (from the Gaelic 'tuig').