Latvian Maritime academy

Later the atheistic moralism started to spread in the post-protestant Western civilization as well as ingeneral European civilization. We have identified a negative approach of North West European seafarersand maritime businessmen to seafarers of Eastern Europe. It may indicate a latent dissatisfaction, becausethe seafarers of Eastern Europe are characterized by better education. Intellectually cultural climate wascreated on boards 20 and more years ago. The Eastern Europeans had a positive attitude to professionalsense of higher education and the value of a seafarer’s personality. The seafarers had a gym, a library, aconcert hall, musical instruments, etc. on board.The seafarers’ recreation usually included and includes so far reading, blog writing, poetry creation,music, painting and photography in regard to their psycho-prophylactics. This is a psycho-educationalcounterweight to the pornographic trend, at the level of imagination hygiene. Such high level of thepersonal and communication culture of seafarers was not achieved in the fleets of the NorthwestEuropean protestant countries. The STCW convention requires social responsibility on board [16], but thetrends of xenophobia and discrimination at the levels of sex, ethnicity, politics and religion dominate ontheir ships so far. The extremes of the Calvinistic Reformation influenced a decline of the value ofseafarer’s personality in the formation of the professional maritime self-concept.In conclusion, the future seafarers’ training should be based on the universal upbringing, becausethey must become leaders.Valuable possibility of the development of future seafarers’ leadershipAutonomy, independent thinking, planning, decision-making, strong and responsible operation aremost important features of seafarers’ leadership. Seafarer’s autonomy is a part of his self-management,self-regulation, self-control and self-confidence. These features help to shape the seafarer’s authority inthe crew, adequately communicate with different members of the crew, create a team from the group ofdifferent members, make a positive influence and educate them. A leader takes care of own and anotherperson’s dignity.Education of the wide maritime self-concept, regular professional improvement and flexiblerelationship with other people from the point of view of professional challenges is very important forleadership. These professional challenges may be strategic or may relate to the challenging maritimepolicy, and comparatively minor. E-learning and the reality of protestant maritime economism as ahistorical result of ideological development in Europe form the problem of valuable direction of theleadership development of future seafarers in the context of this article.Higher psycho-emotional stress dominates in the working conditions of the seafarers. It isappropriate to educate the maritime students’ leadership, respect for laws of the educational psychologyand teach how to avoid primitive objectification of the personality at the level of behaviorism. Thepersonality must unfold freely. A man is alive not by bread alone. Socio-cultural education of maritimestudents helps to harmonize physical and spiritual elements.Technologically standardized and computer-based training is very important. However, it has limitsin regard to psychosocial education. The leader must have interpersonal and multi-cultural competencesand be able to properly communicate with oneself and others. People are living beings, but not robots.Psychosocial education helps to develop imagination, creativity, observation and critical thinking. Everyhuman has aspiration for self-realization in reference to naturally and authentically socio-cultural life.The future maritime leaders must learn to speak maritime English and develop rhetoric skills,imagination hygiene, physical and psychic health. Technology-based education can and should beharmonized with the development of communicational competencies. The future seafarers need teachers -leaders, especially older seafarers, whose leadership is characterized by authority in a positive sense fromthe point of view of the maritime students.The seafarers experience difficulties at the extreme work and relationships on board. It is veryappropriate to develop the reflective writing competence in regard to the leadership self-education. Thetraditional blog writing as a natural silent self-expression under the conditions of loneliness is an effectivemeasure of self-management. It was mentioned earlier, that reflective writing is a creativity that helps torealize management of attention, liberation and management of emotions, structuring of ideas, selforientation,imagination of the practical sense of life, finding of solace, deepening and maturing of thepersonality’s relationship with oneself, and hopeful planning of duties. These functions are very importantat the cognitive level and can psychologically stabilize the personality.The future maritime leader must develop relevant competencies of creativity in non-standardsituations, manage the psycho-emotional stress and bravely take responsible actions. So, it is appropriateto develop critical thinking of maritime students alongside with e-learning and its standard. Critical32