Klaipėdos universitetas

Collaboration skills, multicultural awareness, and intercultural sensitivity are essential to the careers of maritime business professionals. The self-development of a multiculturally conscious personality contributes to ensuring safety in the maritime business. Researchers point out that more attention in the maritime industry should be paid to the employee’s personality than to increasing automation of shipping processes. The heterogeneity of employee teams at the national and religious levels is associated with the problem of increased psychoemotional stress. Instead of emphasizing the teaching of intercultural communication rules, it is appropriate to enable future maritime business professionals to cultivate values, to realize their cognitive interests, to understand that the culture or religion of their colleagues is existentially dear to them, and to be open to a culture of dialogue. Therefore, the article presents more relevant methodological prerequisites for the development of multicultural self-awareness and religious tolerance in the spirit of Neo-Thomism, theistic humanism, personalism, and constructivism.

Self-leadership as self-directed leadership is based on the values of the whole person according to all his/her natural needs to strive not only for their sociobiological satisfaction, but also for God, a spirituality, nobility, higher meaning based on incomparable ideals. The pursuit of values is aided by following leaders, including clergy as moral authorities. This is especially necessary from a point of view of the special psychological experiences in the maritime business. The moral and business authority of the leader is valid for employees as the most important psychological support for their activities. Transcendental motivation is noble and very practical in all cases of professional and personal life. Ideally, becoming a leader is based on authentic following God as the great Leader. There are many opportunities to strengthen the self-leadership of maritime business participants on the basis of secular values. The difference is that parents, brothers or sisters, a friend, a clergyman, TV shows, and movies are more involved in the formation of sociocentric values. Parents, wife, familiar seafarer, teachers, board leaders or leaders in a port company, clergyman, TV shows, films, and NGOs are the most significant moral authorities for the transcendent values of maritime business participants.