Leadership Development · Feedback · Vertical Growth
Johari + TRI gives us a snapshot. CDT + DI provides the engine for deliberate awareness and behavioural change.
The Johari Window has long been used to help leaders understand the gap between how they see themselves and how others perceive them. Recently, Nowack & Mashihi (2025) extended the model with the Trait–Reputation–Identity (TRI) lens, giving leaders a more structured way to align self‑perception with external feedback.
But while useful, both Johari and TRI remain descriptive frameworks. Constructed Development Theory (CDT) and Dynamic Intelligence (DI) go further — offering a developmental path for actually transforming awareness and behaviour.
| Johari + TRI Lens | CDT + DI |
|---|---|
| Open (Trait): What is known to both self and others — recognised strengths and behaviours. | Dynamic Awareness (Conscious CI use): When a leader’s Cognitive Intentions are both internally recognised and externally validated, creating alignment between Intention and Response. |
| Blind Spot (Reputation): What others see but the leader doesn’t — behaviours and impacts outside their awareness. | Unconscious CI use (Low DI): Others experience constructions the leader is blind to. Developmental work makes these heuristics conscious, reducing blind spots over time. |
| Hidden (Identity): What the leader knows but keeps private — values, motives, or vulnerabilities unseen by others. | Private Constructions of Self: Awareness of internal motives, values, or CI patterns not yet disclosed. Choice (a CDT pillar) determines whether to reveal and integrate these into relational contexts. |
| Unknown: Potential or traits unknown to both leader and others. | Developmental Potential (AQ Growth): Untapped awareness and higher‑order thinking styles that emerge as leaders increase their Awareness Quotient. This “unknown” becomes accessible through vertical movement. |
| TRI lens provides three perspectives (Trait, Reputation, Identity). | CDT integrates Intention, Awareness, Choice, and Response (the Four Pillars) to actively develop self‑awareness and Dynamic Intelligence. |
| Focus: Diagnostic tool for feedback and performance management. | Focus: A developmental framework that not only diagnoses gaps but shows leaders how to grow their capacity for awareness, complexity, and deliberate choice. |
Johari + TRI = Awareness Snapshot (describes where blind spots exist).
CDT + DI = Awareness Engine (provides a mechanism to reduce blind spots and expand awareness deliberately).
Johari/TRI are static views of perception. CDT shows how those perceptions are constructed in real time, and how leaders can re‑construct themselves for greater Dynamic Intelligence.
This framing lets us position CDT as “the next generation of the Johari Window” — not discarding it, but integrating and extending it.