Ever heard of the Johari Window?
It’s a framework that breaks how you’re perceived into 4 quadrants:
- What you know about yourself and others see
- What others see that you don’t
- What you know but keep hidden
- What no one sees yet
Under 5M in revenue, most founders are operating almost entirely in Quadrant #1.
You’re competent and respected.
Your team trusts you and the numbers look pretty good.
From the outside, things look “successful.”
But this box can also get dangerously small as the business grows.
Your biggest risks — burnout, stagnation, misalignment, becoming the bottleneck — don’t live in what you already know…
They live in what you can’t see anymore because you’ve been ‘in it’ too long.
The things your team notices but doesn’t say.
The patterns you’ve normalized because “this is just how it is.”
The tension between where the company is going and what you’re promoting as your ‘core values’ – and how it’s actually operating day to day.
This is where founders start to feel:
- Constantly “on,” but oddly disconnected
- Frustrated that smart people aren’t executing at the level they should be
- Afraid that stepping back will make things worse, not better
At this stage, self-awareness becomes a growth constraint.
Not more effort, or more talent, or another Ai tool.
But becoming aware of the things others can see that you can’t.
That’s why the most effective founders I know don’t look for more executors. They look for outside strategic mirrors.
People who can tell you where you’re compensating instead of designing.
Or where your team is capable — but the structure is fighting them.
Most importantly – what truth or pattern of behaviour you are avoiding dealing with.
Because at this stage of growth, you don’t need to prove how capable you are.
The goal is to build a company that doesn’t require your constant overfunctioning to survive.
And you can’t fix what you can’t see.
If this resonated, maybe you’ve outgrown the version of leadership that got you here.
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