Comparative Insights into Emotional Intelligence and AI Governance in Higher Education Leadership This study offers a focused examination of how emotional intelligence operates within leadership during a period shaped by artificial intelligence, drawing on two recent contributions that approach the topic from distinct scholarly angles. The analysis highlights how emotional intelligence operates differently when it is taught in leadership programs and when it appears in real decision-making situations. Aboumoussa and Pfister (2024) present emotional intelligence as a set of abilities that leaders can strengthen through structured development programs. Their work synthesizes research on emotional abilities and leadership preparation, emphasizing reflective learning, interpersonal awareness, and strategies for addressing emerging leadership demands associated with AI. This perspective positions emotional intelligence as a skillset cultivated intentionally through training and program design. Fatile and Adejayan (2025) take a different approach by examining emotional intelligence as it appears in leadership behavior during governance discussions at Harvard University. Their analysis shows how emotional awareness, empathy, and relational competence shape leaders’ responses to issues involving transparency, accountability, and AI‑related decision processes. By grounding emotional intelligence in observable practice, their study illustrates how emotional competencies influence institutional outcomes in real time. Placed side by side, the two studies reveal a continuum that stretches from leadership development to governance behavior. One offers strategies for cultivating emotional abilities; the other demonstrates how those abilities appear when leaders confront ethical, procedural, and institutional challenges shaped by AI integration. This comparison clarifies that emotional intelligence is both a developmental priority and a behavioral resource—one that supports ethical deliberation, relational coordination, and decision-making in higher education. The study also identifies opportunities for future research that combine these perspectives. Integrating developmental strategies with empirical observation would provide a more complete understanding of how emotional intelligence grows and how it functions within governance settings influenced by artificial intelligence. Such work could help institutions design leadership preparation that translates into measurable behavioral effectiveness during complex decision-making. This study supports ethical, human‑centered leadership in higher education as institutions address the opportunities and risks introduced by AI. It reflects a commitment to transparent scholarship and to examining leadership not only as a set of competencies but as a lived practice within institutional contexts.
mopelo fatile (Wed,) studied this question.