Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership: Issue No. 28: The Surprising 360
- mswonger
- Jul 29
- 5 min read
I’ve added a new photograph to my favorites, and it wasn't taken by me. In fact, I didn't even know it existed until this week.
Two years ago, we were exploring an off-the-beaten-path gravel road in Yellowstone. Like everyone else, we stopped at the iconic landmarks. But we also wandered down less-traveled roads, looking for what most people drove past. And sometimes you end up photographing a patch of wildflowers growing along the side of the road. It was beautiful.
The sun shining warmly in an impossible blue sky, and I remember being completely absorbed in what was in front of me, adjusting my angle and watching the light as I tried to capture what I saw through my own lens.
What I didn't know was that someone else was quietly taking a photograph of me. I never saw it… until my husband included it in a birthday post he wrote this week.
When I came across that photograph, I realized something I hadn't considered before. While I was focused on what was in front of me, I had no way of seeing what my own presence looked like from someone else's perspective. The photograph stayed with me. So did the birthday messages.
Every year around my birthday, I find myself taking inventory. Not of accomplishments or milestones as much as the quieter question beneath them.
Who am I becoming?
This year, I didn’t quell the data nerd in me. As birthday messages arrived from family, friends, colleagues, and people I've met through very different seasons of life, I found myself doing what qualitative research has trained me to do. I started looking for patterns.
Researchers are careful about drawing conclusions from a single observation, but we do become interested when independent voices begin describing the same phenomenon. Without consciously intending to, I found myself mentally coding birthday messages. I'm aware that's probably the qualitative-research version of a facepalm, but after enough years of looking for patterns, it's hard to stop.
My husband.
My business partner.
Friends from ministry.
Friends I've known for years.
People I've met more recently.
Different relationships. Different contexts. Different seasons.
As I looked across the themes, I noticed they weren't accomplishment-based. They were relationship-based - how people experienced me. They demonstrated the power of connection.
Very few people mentioned my books, speaking, research, or my doctoral studies. Instead, they described what it had been like to know me. They wrote about kindness, encouragement, faith, discernment, generosity, joy, and presence. They described how they felt after we had spent time together. I realized they were describing my presence more than my performance.
The more I reflected on those themes, the more I thought about the Johari Window.
Honestly, I've had a complicated relationship with that framework. I've seen it create meaningful self-awareness, and I've also experienced how easily it can be misused. Like many good tools, it works best in an atmosphere of curiosity rather than criticism, where people are invited to explore rather than defend. Its misuse has made me more thoughtful about how we use it.
This week, however, I found myself seeing it through a different lens.
The Johari Window suggests there are aspects of ourselves that others can see before we can. Most conversations stop there and assume those unseen areas are weaknesses. I began wondering whether some of our blind spots might actually be strengths. What if there are qualities that have become so much a part of who we are that we scarcely recognize them, even though others experience them consistently? What if the critical voice in our heads drowns out the positive, and this tool can be wielded to facilitate a reframe?
Leadership researchers have long recognized that self-awareness has limits. That's one reason 360-degree feedback can be so valuable. We know our intentions. Other people experience our presence. Neither perspective is complete by itself.
Alfred Adler believed we are best understood in relationship rather than isolation. He also encouraged people to examine the conclusions they carried about themselves by asking whether those conclusions continued to move them toward courage, contribution, and social interest. It is a question worth revisiting from time to time because our interpretations often outlive the experiences that created them.
How many of us are still living from stories we formed years ago—stories shaped by criticism, disappointment, failure, or fear? Stories that once helped us make sense of our lives but have never been revisited in light of new evidence. What if our inner critic has been repeating a story that no longer fits the evidence?
Researchers don't become attached to their interpretations. When the data consistently point in a different direction, we revisit the conclusions. I found myself wondering whether we should approach our own lives with the same humility.
Not every opinion deserves equal weight. Some people know only a version of us, a snapshot without the benefit of the composite. Others have walked beside us through seasons of celebration and sorrow, success and disappointment. They have watched us over time. Their observations don't define us, but they may reveal something we cannot easily see on our own.
As I reflected on another year, I realized how much time I spend evaluating my performance rather than my presence.
Perhaps birthdays invite us to consider both. Perhaps birthdays invite us to pause long enough to see ourselves through another lens.
The older I get, the less convinced I am that our greatest contribution will be measured by what we accomplish. I wonder if it will be found instead in the recurring themes that emerge when people who know us well describe what it has been like to share life with us. In the end, it’s our connections that tell the story our accomplishments never could.
As it turns out, while I was focused on what was in front of me, other people had been quietly noticing something I couldn't see for myself.
Perhaps the most valuable 360 isn't the one we request. Perhaps it's the one that has been quietly unfolding for years before we finally recognize it on an ordinary birthday.
The questions I'm sitting with this week are:
If the people who know me best described me, what themes would consistently emerge?
What story about myself am I still believing that no longer fits the evidence?
Am I investing as much energy in cultivating my presence as I am in pursuing my accomplishments?
What feedback can I offer someone today to help them see how positive their presence is?
~ Melissa, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership Founder, The Sage Hill Project Co-Founder, Mind Shifts Lab Publishing Partner, She Rises Studios
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