Human-Centered Leadership Readiness in Industry 5.0 Maritime Environments: An Exploratory Study of Emotional, Social, Intercultural and Digital Competencies

Resumen

This exploratory study examines Human-Centric Leadership Readiness (HCLR) within maritime Industry 5.0 environments, focusing on how emotional, social, intercultural, and digital competencies interact to shape leadership preparedness among future maritime professionals. Drawing on a cross-sectional survey of 60 maritime students and trainees from Bulgaria and Spain, the study introduces and pilot-tests the Human-Centric Leadership Readiness for Industry 5.0 (HCLR–I5) instrument, comprising five scales: HCLR, Emotional Self-Regulation (ESR), Social Attunement and Strength-Based Leadership (SA-SBL), Intercultural Communication Effectiveness (ICE), and AI/Digital Self-Efficacy (AI-SE). Correlation and multiple regression analyses reveal that HCLR is most strongly predicted by SA-SBL (β = .52, p < .001), followed by ICE (β = .29, p < .01) and ESR (β = .21, p < .05), with the overall model explaining a substantial proportion of variance (R² = .74). Unexpectedly, AI-SE shows a significant negative association with HCLR (β = −.34, p < .01), suggesting that self-reported digital confidence and human-centered leadership orientation may not develop in tandem. Mean scores were highly consistent across the Bulgarian and Spanish subsamples, indicating that shared professional maritime culture may shape leadership attitudes more than national context. The findings support a conceptual model positioning relational and human-centered capacities at the core of leadership readiness in increasingly digitalized maritime settings, while framing digital competence as a contextual rather than central driver. As a pilot study, the results offer preliminary evidence to inform future instrument refinement and leadership development initiatives within Industry 5.0 maritime education.