NEWTON and CMA Collaboration: Redefining the DNA of Czech Leadership

The era of "self-made" leaders who managed companies by instinct is over. The rising generation needs more than just courage to succeed—it requires data, deep analysis, and the ability to integrate technologies like AI into daily decision-making.

NEWTON University and the Czech Management Association (CMA) have collaborated for years, for instance, on the Manager of the Year Conference. This year, however, they are deepening their partnership by establishing the Center of Excellence. Its goal is to transform decades of experience from the most successful managers and leaders into an exact methodology for leading companies in the 21st century.

Why are old recipes for success failing? 

Today, most companies do not manage their leaders based on data, but on gut feeling. Yet, according to extensive studies by Gallup, managers influence team engagement by up to 70%. Poor leadership is not just an ethical issue; it is a direct cost reflected in employee turnover and loss of productivity.

As part of the prestigious Manager of the Year competition, we observe the best of the best. We witness their rises and falls. Until now, however, this vast goldmine of knowledge remained confined to individual stories shared during the Manager of the Year Conference. With the arrival of the Center of Excellence, the era of mere storytelling ends.

NEWTON University takes on the role of analytical partner, becoming the first in the Czech Republic to conduct an in-depth review of what truly constitutes 'managerial excellence' within the Czech socio-economic context.

The Center of Excellence

The collaboration is not a formal declaration on paper; it has clearly defined competencies and specific processes:

• The Czech Management Association (CMA) is opening its archives, providing complete data from Manager of the Year applications over the past decades. This includes thousands of pages of structured responses, strategies, and crisis scenarios handled by top managers. The CMA acts as the guarantor of practice and a direct bridge to the people who actually built the Czech business landscape.
• NEWTON University is deploying its academic capacity and research teams. Our task is to anonymize this data, subject it to longitudinal analysis methods, and perform benchmarking. We are seeking answers to the question: What specific behavioral patterns distinguish winners from the average? The results will not be mere general advice, but a series of scientific studies published in impact journals (Q1/Q2 categories) and a comprehensive monograph.

Value that translates into corporate results 

Why should business owners and ambitious managers care? Because the Center of Excellence is creating a new standard for "Next-Generation Leadership."

According to research by McKinsey & Company, 70% of digital transformations end in failure—not because of technology, but because of management failure. Therefore, the Center of Excellence focuses on critical areas that determine survival:

1. Digital Leadership and AI: Teaching managers how to make decisions based on data, not ego.
2. Psychology of Leadership and Well-being: Creating methodologies for building psychologically safe environments, which is the most important factor in team performance.
3. Bridging Generations: NEWTON students gain direct access to mentoring from the figures we analyze. Elite know-how is thus passed on not through sterile textbooks, but through managed interaction between experience (CMA) and fresh, innovative thinking (NEWTON).

Professionalizing Managers 

The establishment of the Center of Excellence is a response to the call for greater professionalization of the management profession in the Czech Republic. This is not a one-year project; it is a commitment to the long-term development of an environment where decisions are made based on evidence (Evidence-Based Management), not guesswork.

The outputs of our work, from professional studies to "Shadowing Managers" with Manager of the Year winners, will be gradually made available to the professional public.

Follow our NEWTON TODAY and social media, where we will regularly release partial findings from our analyses.