Johari Window Template — Self-Awareness, Peer Feedback & Team Trust
Most people have a reasonably accurate picture of their strengths. Almost nobody has an accurate picture of their blind spots. The Johari Window is a structured exercise that uses peer feedback to close that gap — surfacing what colleagues see that you don't, and what you know about yourself that you haven't shared. Preview the template below or use the interactive version in FigJam.
What is the Johari Window?
The Johari Window is a self-awareness and mutual understanding framework developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955. The name is a combination of their first names — Joseph and Harrington. It uses a simple four-quadrant model to map the relationship between what a person knows about themselves and what others know about them.
Open — what is known to both you and others. The traits, behaviours, and working styles that are visible to everyone and acknowledged by the person themselves. The goal of the Johari Window exercise is to expand this quadrant.
Blind Spot — what others know about you that you don't know about yourself. This is the most valuable quadrant for personal development: it contains the feedback that, if heard and integrated, produces the most significant growth. Peer input reveals this quadrant.
Hidden — what you know about yourself that others don't. Skills, motivations, anxieties, or ways of working that you haven't disclosed to colleagues. Voluntary self-disclosure reduces this quadrant and builds trust.
Unknown — what neither you nor others currently know about you. Potential, capabilities, and behaviours that haven't yet had the conditions to emerge. This quadrant shrinks as people take on new challenges and receive more feedback.
The framework is used in team development, leadership coaching, onboarding, and any context where self-awareness and trust are being built deliberately rather than left to chance.
See the Template in Action
Explore the template below to see how it's structured. To use the fully editable version, open it in FigJam, where you can copy, customise, and collaborate with your team.
How to run a Johari Window exercise
Step 1 — Individual self-assessment
Each participant reviews the standard Johari Window adjective list and selects the words they feel most accurately describe themselves. The list typically includes 55–60 adjectives: able, accepting, adaptable, bold, brave, calm, caring, cheerful, clever, complex, confident, dependable, energetic, extroverted, friendly, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic, independent, ingenious, intelligent, introverted, kind, knowledgeable, logical, loving, mature, modest, nervous, observant, organised, patient, powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, relaxed, religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly, smart, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense, trustworthy, warm, wise, witty. Participants typically select 5–6 adjectives that feel most true. The selection should be done independently, before seeing peer feedback.
Step 2 — Peer feedback
Each participant's colleagues go through the same list and select the adjectives they feel most accurately describe that person. In a team setting, this works best when peers submit their selections privately before the group session — removing the social pressure of real-time selection.
Step 3 — Build the window
Compare the self-selections and peer selections: adjectives selected by both self and peers go in the Open quadrant; adjectives selected by peers but not by self go in the Blind Spot quadrant; adjectives selected by self but not by peers go in the Hidden quadrant; adjectives selected by neither go in the Unknown quadrant. In a FigJam version, each participant can map their adjectives directly onto the four-quadrant visual in real time.
Step 4 — Structured conversation
The most important part of the exercise is what happens after the window is built. Each person gets space to share: what surprised them in their Blind Spot — the adjectives peers selected that they didn't see in themselves; what they want to share from their Hidden quadrant — something they know about themselves that would help colleagues work with them better; what they want to do with what they learned — one specific intention based on the exercise. The facilitator's job is to hold space for honest reflection without letting the conversation become evaluative or competitive.
Step 5 — Follow through
A Johari Window exercise that ends with the session produces temporary insight. One that's followed by deliberate action — asking for ongoing feedback on a specific blind spot, sharing something from the hidden quadrant at the next team meeting, making peer recognition more specific based on what you now know colleagues value — produces lasting development.
55 Johari Window adjectives — the standard list
The following adjectives are used in the standard Johari Window exercise. Participants select the ones they feel describe themselves; peers select the ones they feel describe the person.
Able · Accepting · Adaptable · Bold · Brave · Calm · Caring · Cheerful · Clever · Complex · Confident · Dependable · Dignified · Energetic · Extroverted · Friendly · Giving · Happy · Helpful · Idealistic · Independent · Ingenious · Intelligent · Introverted · Kind · Knowledgeable · Logical · Loving · Mature · Modest · Nervous · Observant · Organised · Patient · Powerful · Proud · Quiet · Reflective · Relaxed · Religious · Responsive · Searching · Self-assertive · Self-conscious · Sensible · Sentimental · Shy · Silly · Smart · Spontaneous · Sympathetic · Tense · Trustworthy · Warm · Wise · Witty
Practical note: In professional settings, remove adjectives that are likely to create discomfort (religious, silly) and add context-specific descriptors if needed — for example, strategic, collaborative, decisive, empathetic, direct, creative — to make the list more relevant to a work context.
10 questions to deepen the Johari Window conversation
These questions extend the exercise into genuine dialogue. Use them in the structured conversation phase after each person has mapped their window.
Conversation prompts
How the Johari Window connects to peer recognition and team culture
The Johari Window and peer recognition are, at their core, doing the same thing: making visible what one person sees in another that might otherwise go unseen.
When a colleague sends a specific kudos — "the way you stayed calm when the client escalated that call held the whole room together, and I don't think anyone said that at the time" — they're doing something structurally similar to what the Johari Window exercise does formally. They're moving a quality from the Blind Spot quadrant into the Open quadrant. They're saying: I see this in you that you may not see in yourself.
The difference is that the Johari Window happens once in a workshop. Peer recognition, when it's specific and consistent, happens continuously. Teams that practise regular, specific recognition are effectively running a continuous Johari Window process — one that doesn't require a session, a facilitator, or a formal exercise. It's built into the daily rhythm of how the team notices and names each other's contributions.
This is why the quality of recognition matters as much as the frequency. "Great job today" tells someone nothing they didn't already know. "You asked the question in that meeting that nobody else was willing to ask, and it changed the direction of the conversation" reveals something that lived in their blind spot — and that kind of recognition has a lasting effect on how someone understands their own value to the team.
Karma makes this concrete: peer kudos tied to specific behaviours, tagged to company values, visible to the whole team. The recognition feed over time becomes a record of what the team sees in each other — a living Johari Window that updates every time someone chooses to name what they noticed.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Johari Window?
The Johari Window is a self-awareness framework developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955. It uses a four-quadrant model — Open, Hidden, Blind Spot, and Unknown — to map what a person knows about themselves against what others know about them. It's used in team and professional development settings to improve self-awareness, build trust, and open up more productive feedback conversations.
What are the four quadrants of the Johari Window?
The four quadrants are: Open (known to self and others — the traits and behaviours everyone can see), Blind Spot (known to others but not to self — feedback reveals this quadrant), Hidden (known to self but not others — things you haven't shared), and Unknown (unknown to both self and others — potential that hasn't yet emerged). The goal of a Johari Window exercise is to expand the Open quadrant by reducing the Blind Spot through peer feedback and reducing the Hidden quadrant through self-disclosure.
How do you run a Johari Window exercise?
Each participant selects adjectives from a standard list that they feel describe themselves, then asks colleagues to select adjectives that describe them from the same list. The overlap between self-selection and peer selection defines the Open quadrant. Adjectives selected by peers but not by the individual define the Blind Spot. Adjectives the individual selected but peers didn't define the Hidden quadrant. The exercise is most effective when followed by a structured conversation about what each person discovered and what they want to do with that information.
When should you use the Johari Window?
The Johari Window is most useful at moments of team formation, leadership development, or when a team is experiencing communication or trust issues that aren't fully visible. It works well as part of onboarding for new leaders, in team-building workshops, and as a complement to 360 feedback processes. It's less effective when used in low-trust environments or when participants don't feel safe being honest — the exercise requires psychological safety to produce useful output.
What is the difference between the Johari Window and a 360 review?
A 360 review is a structured performance feedback process that collects input from a person's manager, peers, and direct reports on specific competencies or behaviours — usually as part of a formal appraisal cycle. The Johari Window is a self-awareness exercise that uses peer input to help someone understand how they're perceived relative to how they see themselves. The 360 is primarily evaluative; the Johari Window is primarily developmental. They complement each other well — the Johari Window can be a useful warm-up before a 360 process.
How does the Johari Window connect to peer recognition?
The Johari Window reveals what peers see in someone that the person doesn't see in themselves — and peer recognition is one of the most natural mechanisms for making that visible on a regular basis. When a colleague sends a specific kudos naming a particular strength or behaviour, they're doing something structurally similar to the Johari Window exercise: sharing an observation that lives in the other person's blind spot. Teams that practise specific peer recognition regularly are, in effect, continuously expanding each other's Open quadrant — one acknowledgement at a time.
Other templates
One-on-one Meeting Template
Run productive one-on-one meetings with a structured agenda for feedback, goal tracking, and employee development.
Ready to get started?
If you're ready to get started with Karma, sign up now and explore the benefits of the recognition for your team. You can also reach out for a free demo.
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Effective date: Oct 18, 2022
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