Communication is the principal factor of effective leadership. The leaders must be effective communicators to enable their subjects to understand the goals and objectives of any given plan or the roles each person should play to facilitate realization of the targets. Most leaders tend to dismiss this importance hence the failures experienced even in the most skilled teams. According to Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham’s Johari Window ineffective communication skills is caused by self-awareness problems whereby the leader fails to convey the correct messages, seek feedbacks, or having the wrong public view. The Johari Window quadrant promotes self-awareness and encourages sharing among the seniors and juniors in any organization which improve communication and the working relationship (Patchin, 2015). The transactional analysis (TA) also contributes on ways to enhance effective communication by demonstrating the different egos namely parent, adult, and child that tends to affect the mode of communication within a company (Puckridge, 2009). Unlike most theories that are inapplicable in the real world, the Johari Window and TA are applicable as the answers to the five questions below demonstrates.
Using a Johari Window analysis, what do you think some of your supervisor’s or subordinate’s blind spots are? What do you think some of your potential blind spots might be?
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The blind spots in a Johari Window are the qualities that a person does not know about themselves but are recognized by others. These qualities tend to be either positive or negative thus can affect the ability of a person to relate to others or create the impression they want to reveal to the public (Mind Tools Editorial Team. 2014). It is easier to note these qualities from someone else than identifying my blind spots. The Johari Window calls for asking or seeking feedbacks to determine these blind spots.
During my internship, I worked under a female boss, Sally. Sally was competent in her tasks, but I believe that working in a male-dominated career threatened her. She seemed to be always on her toes and as if she was expected to prove her prowess and power as a senior manager to all employees. The commanding tone to gain respect from the workers got her nicknames and disrespect from most workers. The workers claimed that her competence and ability to perform better than her male colleagues in managerial positions would be enough to warrant the respect she deserved by her ego was overboard. She was competent due to harassing and pressuring everyone to be perfect but being on her team would have been more of honor for most workers, but the ego ruined everything. It is evident that her ego and inability to treat workers as humans rather than machines were her blind spots.
As earlier stated, it is difficult to identify my blind spots, and it is only through seeking feedbacks from my friends and supervisors I can learn about them. However, this paper asks me to think what my potential blind spots are and with limited time to ask others about it. I have to be critical of myself. I think that fear of failure is my blind spot. I am willing to accept defeat rather than fail which restrains my risk-taking and creativity that would aid propel my abilities. When the going gets tough, I tend to freeze for instance during team meetings I would freeze when other team members chipped in their ideas even when I had better ideas or knew their ideas were ineffective for a given task.
Also using a Johari Window analysis, what kind of hidden spots did you keep between you and your supervisor or subordinate? Did you suspect your supervisor or subordinate of having hidden spots?
Everybody has two faces just like a coin. The two faces are based on a person ability to differentiate career life and personal life. The Johari Window terms the secret personality that a person hides from everyone as hidden spots (Connor, & Pokora, 2012). These secrets can be unforgettable memories such as sexual abuse or weaknesses that when known to people would result in being viewed differently or lose the respect from others. The hidden spots can also be plans to change careers.
Sally shared her past experiences on the rough upbringing under authoritative parenting, and her career choice was not accepted by her parents. As the only child in a wealthy family, she was expected to be a doctor or surgeon just as her family friend’s children. She had plans to own her franchise in within the next three years, but she had to work to gain money and prove to her family that she can be successful just as the others were in prestigious careers. She was always under pressure hence the long hours she spent after everyone had left office. Her determination and the blind spots may have originated from the past experiences that she had to prove to her parents that she was right. She claimed that her parents told her that nobody would respect her as a manager as she was weak hence her commanding tone to emphasize her authority to everyone. She was compassionate and reasonable, but those characters were hidden to all other workers apart from me since we were building a healthy relationship. I suspect that Sally had more hidden spots due to her unpredictability and mood changes after her long calls from her parents. She was either angry or joyous which is challenging to determine the progress of their family relationship.
Based on your answers to Questions 1 and 2 above as well as the required readings, how might Johari Window analysis be used to improve this supervisor/subordinate relationship that you wrote about in the above two answers?
According to Connor & Pokora (2012), the Johari Window calls for self-awareness through increased sharing of the hidden spots and asking for feedbacks to limit the blind spots. Mind Tools Editorial Team (2014) support argument by claiming that whenever one shares or receives feedbacks about their characters the unknown sections in the quadrant reduce and there can associate better with people. In the case described in the previous questions, Sally can lessen the stressful and hectic days by reducing her ego and being approachable to the workers who crave to work under her leadership due to her achievements and success rate in the company’s projects. Reducing her ego would ensure that her human resource management skills improve and as human resource management studies depict.
The studies demonstrate that leaders who can build better working relationship benefit from increased productivity of the workers than authoritative leaders do. The fear strategy used by traditional managers to motivate the workers is no longer applicable to the current workers thus Sally may face rejection or unmotivated staffs if she continues shutting them out (Lall, & Zaidi, 2010). I believe sharing some of her hidden spots would enable her to express her natural abilities and accelerate her progress in realizing her dreams. The unapproachable manner she commands authority may affect the willingness of the workers to share crucial information thus crumble her projects in future, therefore, adopting the Johari Window approach would save her the humiliation of failure.
Using Transactional Analysis, give some specific examples of when you and your supervisor or subordinate acted like “parents,” “children,” or “adults.” And be honest—we all act like “children” sometimes in the workplace .
According to McKay, Fanning, & Davis (2009), TA has three main egos. The parent ego can either be punitive or be nurturing depending on the situation. Punitive parent ego is used to depict authority whereas nurturing is used to be comforting. The child ego is mostly demonstrated through endless complaining and rudeness. Adult ego, on the other hand, is based on politeness and etiquette when communicating. The working place is filled with all three egos with the managers or supervisors likely to use commanding tones to the workers. The tone and message make it evident that they treat the workers with no respect or like children who act before thinking. The child ego is evident in workers who tend to complain about the workload. Adult ego ensures positive and interactive communication towards the achievement of the greater good.
For instance, during the hectic annual filing season, the tax preparation workload result in the bossy parental states from the managers.
Parent: Sally, What is taking you this long are you stupid or just lazy. I need the filings on my desk in 30 minutes, or you kiss your job goodbye.
Child: Me, Why can’t you assign the job to Jim, I am always the person who does everything in this office and have the lowest pay.
Adult: Jim, Am sorry I have a client to meet at the moment but if I am back before you are through I will help you with the fillings
Based on your answer to Question 4 and the required readings, how do you think this supervisor/subordinate relationship might have been improved using Transactional Analysis?
The three statement demonstrating parent, child, and adult egos depict that the parent and child egos are likely to result in confrontation and bad blood between Sally and I. Her parent ego demonstrates that I am not working hard enough although I am doing everything I can to complete the task. My child’s ego results in complaining and being unapologetic that I have not finished the task. TA depict that the Parent to child communication results in a breakdown of communication hence the need to respond as an adult. The leader should also be an adult when trying to determine the reasons the work is still incomplete. Jim demonstrate an adult ego that cannot result in confrontations and breakdown in the relationship. Using a similar strategy would improve the relationship by reducing conflicts in the working places.
References
Connor, M., & Pokora, J. (2012). Chapter 9: What are some useful tools and techniques? Coaching and Mentoring at Work: Developing Effective Practice. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education, pp. 183-189. [EBSCO eBook Collection]
Lall, M., & Zaidi, S. Q. (2010). Human resources management . New Delhi: Excel Books.
McKay, M., Fanning, P., & Davis, M. (2009). Chapter 7: Transactional Analysis. Messages: The Communication Skills Book . Oakland, Calif: New Harbinger Publications. [EBSCO eBook Collection]
Mind Tools Editorial Team. (2014). The Johari Window: Using self-discovery and communication to build trust. Mind Tools, Ltd., London. Retrieved November 21, 2017, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_CON.htm
Patchin, S. (2015).Leadership and the Johari Window Part 1. The Tru Group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofs7oBqu0Dg:
Puckridge, P. (2009). Transactional Analysis in action. Success Institute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFT2HJliaKE&list=PLRn0GjEedVvioZq6tK-Iwi83sRdHUFok-
