Eventually, the JoHari Window became a more standardized exercise* (as seen at right).  But the popularity of the exercise waned mainly because the task took half a day or more for a small group of participants to complete.  

 Nonetheless, there are some significant realities within the JoHari Window that can be used to develop a sense of one's leadership style.  What's important about this 2x2 matrix is that the areas of each pane don't stay equal but rather change size and shape to represent  magnitude or power within one's "self."

 Furthermore, the two factors that create the cells are basic to developing leadership effectiveness and style.  They are:

• your self-awareness; and
• what others are aware of about you.

Any resemblance between a conventional set of identical window panes and a person's JoHari window is 99% imaginative and 100% unsupported by reality. Psychodynamic Window Panes can and should change in area. For example, effective leaders were assumed to be ones who could develop a large "Arena" (Public Self) containing things they know about themselves and are also known to others.  The mission of leadership development then was to successfully grow the Arena.  

 That was a challenge because the main way to grow any one window pane was to shrink one or more of the other three.  You see, the four window areas represent all there is, that is, the whole person.  And here is where the challenges start of appear.

wikicommons

When the sizes and shapes of the four window panes are radically different, it signifies that one's self-awareness is either robust or else somehow impaired.  Through experiential exercises led by trained facilitators (therapists) player-leaders would intensively work on lessening the "Blind Spot, Facade, and Unknown" panes of awareness while adding to the factors in the Arena, traits known to the leader and also known to others.

Perhaps the most commonly recognized "pane" is the Blind Spot. Just about everyone has worked for some "LINO" (leader in name only) who was totally unaware of a usually bad quality that was all-too clear to those he or she led. Like what? Perhaps these are familiar:

• Incapable of unconditional praise of a peer or subordinate.
• Turning any commentary into a self-serving plug highlighted many times by the word "I".
• Unintentionally taking unearned credit for the work of someone else.
• Vanity, exaggeration or "oneupmanship" to reinforce one's self-importance.