Abstract:

In today’s age of globalization, rapid advances in technology, and rapid change at all levels, employees, managers, and leaders must achieve corporate goals and contribute as much as possible to the success and reputation of the organization. Critical thinking, the importance of a wise approach, quick reactions, out-of-the-box thinking, and the need to make sometimes difficult decisions to effectively overcome the situation they face together with ability to communicate effectively and motivate and inspire employees to achieve more than the estimated personal maximum are the key competencies of today's leaders. Lessons on principles, skills, tactics and values of martial arts and combat systems can be a useful tool in upgrading models of effective corporate governance and personal empowerment, and thus contribute to leadership skills development. This paper investigates the connection between the adopted values, skills and tactics of the Krav Maga self-defense system and the characteristics of the leadership competencies of the respondents in relation to the aggregate variables self-regulation, self-perception and environmental awareness. The data were collected during March 2021 using web-based anonymous questionnaire from a deliberate sample of active athletes practicing Krav Maga system from a total of 22 countries (N = 98, F = 36). The quantitative methodological approach was used. To linearly reduce the dimensionality of variables, the principal components method (PCA) was used. For testing the data appropriateness, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (BTS) were conducted (KMO = 0,848). Three components were extracted which accounted for 95,064 % of the total variance. Component 1 may be renamed as “Engagement”; component 2 may be renamed as “Moral values and working energy” and component 3 may be renamed as “Supportive behavior”. In this sample of respondents, the findings demonstrated that it is possible to extract the values, skills and qualities (competencies) that describe the leader, but also the engaged employee, inherent in highly effective organizations. These derived competencies can be described as immanent traits / traits that can be adopted, i.e. further developed through the training of the Krav Maga system. Seeing the global scarcity of quantitative research in the context of relationship between the values and tactics of Krav Maga system and the transformational leadership competencies development, it can be said that the results expand insights into this problem and can be used as a basis for future, more complex research.

Keywords:

Change management skills, Krav Maga system, principal component analysis, transformational leadership.