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This study examined how higher education leaders in Bahrain understood and navigated the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and artificial intelligence (AI) within a rapidly digitalizing academic environment. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 20 leaders from public and private higher education institutions, the study explored how EI shaped leadership practice in contexts increasingly influenced by AI-enabled systems, data-driven decision-making and institutional modernization. Thematic analysis identified five interconnected themes: self-awareness as a relational leadership practice, conflict management through dignity-preserving approaches, feedback as an emotionally mediated process, recognition of the emotional and ethical limits of AI, and the integration of EI and AI as complementary leadership competencies. The findings suggested that EI was not merely an individual psychological attribute, but a culturally situated leadership practice shaped by hierarchy, collectivism, relational expectations and institutional values. While AI was perceived as useful for enhancing efficiency and operational decision-making, participants emphasized that it could not interpret emotional context, preserve trust or address ethical complexity without human mediation. The study contributes to leadership scholarship by proposing a culturally grounded dual-competency model in which AI supports analytical capacity, while EI sustains empathy, ethical judgment, legitimacy and relational trust in Gulf and non-Western higher education contexts.
Saeed et al. (Tue,) studied this question.