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Dr. Patrick Malone has taught at American University for about 25 years, and he is not worried that artificial intelligence is coming for the work. He is worried that institutions will forget to teach the part it cannot do. As Director of the Key Executive Leadership Programs, Dr. Patrick Malone spends his days with senior leaders who are, by any measure, already smart enough — and who still struggle to read a room, sit with a hard emotion, or explain to their teams why the work matters. His argument on this episode is a hopeful one: the better AI gets at the task, the more the judgment behind the task is worth. That has real consequences for how institutions teach, how they admit, and how they plan the campus environment students learn in.
→ AI panic has a track record, and it is poor. ATMs did not end bank tellers and email did not end meetings — roles changed rather than vanished.
→ In a room of accomplished professionals, IQ is roughly a wash. The research puts successful professionals about one standard deviation above the norm, which makes self awareness, not raw intelligence, the differentiator.
→ Emotions are not the problem — what we do with them is. Malone frames emotional regulation as a skill to be coached, the same way you would coach a layup.
→ Admissions has already moved. Institutions are interviewing applicants on conflict, inclusion, and perspective taking, because that is what they now screen for.
→ The environment is part of the pedagogy. People who feel safe in a space learn better and retain more, which puts campus design, scheduling, and utilization squarely inside the academic mission.
See how institutions are putting this into practice.
Bow Tie Tuesday brings higher education leaders on to talk through space, facilities, and campus intelligence. Browse every episode and our latest research at campusiq.com/resources.
Welcome back to another Bow Tie Tuesday. It is my privilege to welcome Dr. Patrick Malone. Patrick's been at American University for the last 25 or so years. Teaching, Deep Thinker, if maybe you've recently been in the latest APPA National, you would have caught him as one of the keynote speakers as well. Patrick put out lots of interesting articles, books, and one of them that I thought would be really, really fun to discuss was this one titled EI as emotional intelligence is greater than AI. Patrick, welcome to Bow Tie Tuesday, man.
Oh, thanks, Aaron. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invite. So, tell me about this article, EI, emotional intelligence greater than AI. What do you mean by that? You know, we've seen a lot of fear, and you and I have talked about the amount of kind of anxiety tied to the, but when I think about AI, I think all of us can recognize that there's going to be a lot of value or there is a lot of value to it. when ATMs arrived, everybody predicted the end of bank tellers.
When email arrived, everyone thought that meetings were no longer going to happen, and clearly that didn't happen. So I think that our idea was that, look, AI is valuable, but by the same token, we've got to recognize that there are certain things that we do as human beings that AI will never be able to do. For example, judgment. our value as leaders, as managers, as technicians has never really been in the tasks that we do. I think our value has always been in the judgment behind those tasks and the judgment and the focus and the way we conduct ourselves is all tied to emotional intelligence. And that's why we came up with that title. Yeah, I love that.
So when you think emotional intelligence, right, like, is this also EQ or what do you kind of bundle in, in emotional intelligence? Just when, when compared, so if like, we just think AI, like it's, let's say intelligence on, on tap, So you mentioned judgment. Are there anything else that you would like really emphasize within EI? Definitely. So there's often, sometimes you'll hear EI, you'll hear EQ, which is emotional quotient. Emotional quotient and IQ are quite different as well. We know from the research that the average IQ of a successful professional is about one standard deviation above the norm.
And therefore that means that if you're working with a bunch of other professionals, you're probably just as smart as each other. So it's kind of a wash. The EQ or the EI part of it is, is about our ability to be self aware, our ability to be able to read a room, our ability to understand our inner signals. And more importantly, how we respond to those inner signals when we feel them. Because there's a, I always find with, especially with our executive students, they're like, well, emotions are bad. Like, no, actually, emotions are quite okay. Emotions are really good.
And they're very natural. The problem typically isn't with emotions. It's what we do with the emotions we feel, It's about whether we recognize the emotions we feel. And that's really what emotional intelligence is all about. So it reminds me of one of the few books I've read multiple times, because every time I read it, I just love it more. But Good Inside by Dr. Becky, Just does a brilliant job of, it's really for parents and how do you teach your kids these skills?
And what does it look like all of a sudden, if in the same way that we were to teach our kid, if they weren't able to make a layup in basketball, Well, we go and teach them and maybe there's some form. But what if we treated emotions like that, Like, emotions aren't things to suppress. There's things to how do we build our skill to handle our emotions, so that when they throw their controller because they lost in a video game or something, Instead of, hey, be quiet and suppressing that, How do we learn how to deal with it and actually build our skill set? And I love it because then reading it, of course, I think, hey, this isn't just for me and my kids. This is like for me and every relationship that I'm a part of across anything, Like, what are my emotions right now? Do I have the skill set to handle this emotion? And, that's something like EI, And bringing the judgment to the table.
Absolutely. There was a, your example reminded me of a book that was written back in the 70s. When I was in high school, I was a tennis player and there was a really popular book called The Inner Game by Timothy Gallwey. And it talked about the focus that most people have on their skills and developing their skills. And they did an experiment where they had players and they would have them aim for the baseline, hit the ball toward the baseline, hit the ball toward the baseline. And they wanted them to focus on the skills, getting their feet in position, getting their racket back, watching into the ball, all that. And then they would do another round of testing, but they would have them to think of something totally different, like a lyrics to a song or just something completely not related.
And Gallwey talked about Self 1 and Self 2. And Self 2 is the inner self that we really don't pay attention to. And that's the one that I think EI addresses. But it takes a lot of work and it's hard work to do. inner, I'm teaching a course in a few months called development of the leadership self. And this is to a bunch of senior leaders who are going to be like, you're telling me I got to develop my inner self. I'm like, we all got to develop our inner self.
We're unfinished products, man. You know, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm not done grown. Are you done growing? No, have you been talking to my wife? She'll tell you that. Yeah, well, maybe our wives have been talking to each other.
Maybe so. That's what. So very cool. Well, so when we think about education, right, maybe even the future of education, all of a sudden you can see how much students use AI and just easy adopters of the technology. It often makes me think of, I think it's the Carl Young quote, right, be aware of unearned wisdom, right, where it's like, Hey, what happens if you give people intelligence on tap? And so, especially as a as a professor, as a teacher, when we think about the future of higher education, right, not just our learning environment, but like the full campus. What do you think leaders should be either thinking, doing, or how do you think like, let's say the product of education, like we want to bring people here to in some way create better human beings, right, whatever that might mean.
How do you think that changes or what do you think the things that we actually need to go and emphasize more today than might be different than the past? Yeah, it's a great question. I think that one of the things that we can do is to recognize what our incoming students are looking for. And when I say incoming, I'm not talking about just freshmen, undergrads, I'm talking about grad students, almost more especially grad students, because they've kind of gotten to a point in their lives where they're a little more focused, they know where they want to go. Maybe they've made a mistake here and there and they're laser focused on what they're going to do. But I think, the students that are coming into our campuses nowadays, they're looking for, they're looking for a lot of connection. You know, times are very difficult now.
And even for recent graduates, people are really struggling. So I think that we need to meet them at a place where they are. And what they're looking for is they're looking for a way to connect with one another, but also to connect with their environment and their communities. As an undergrad many years ago, I don't know that I could tell you much about the community that surrounded the school that I went to. I went to school and I went back home and I worked and then I went to school. Nowadays, people are coming into campuses and they want to be part of something bigger than just that campus. And I think that as universities, we can offer that opportunity to them.
And most universities do. They're screening students in a way now when they come in and they're asking them questions and interviews that are tied to emotional intelligence. How do you handle conflict? How have you learned about, what are your thoughts about inclusion? What are your thoughts about different perspectives? And they're really looking for these kinds of responses. And I think it's a really positive thing because I think that's what our students are wanting.
And then from the service perspective, giving them, we know that in the workplace, one of the things that workers really want is they want to know what the efficacy of their work is. They want to know that it actually... Does what I do matter. Yeah. Yeah. Does it matter? Yeah.
Does it matter? And I think that one of the biggest failures of senior leaders, and I see this all the time, is they don't take the time to help them understand why it matters. And that's very frustrating because they're like, that's your job as a senior leader is to connect those dots. You can't expect them to know this. You are sitting here. You should know. And it's the same way with our campuses.
You know, as university administrators and deans and professors and staff, I think we can really help students understand how they fit in, not only to campus, but how they fit into the community and how they fit into the world in general. And I think that just creates a wonderful journey for them. So when they come out the other end, they're feeling really positive about the difference they're making. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really excited about, and maybe it's just I naturally want to lean there either, but is the new opportunities that will get created, the ways we can conserve students differently, as well as what they're bringing. Like, I think about how, today we're enrolling, I think without question, the most neurodivergent group of students that I've ever entered higher education, And I go, boy, what an amazing opportunity to do things different to serve population groups in specific ways that adhere to them that maybe never before were possible. But maybe this is how we leverage, leverage AI and even change our processes, change the physical environment to actually help reflect that, to not only build them up, let's say, academically, but from an EQ perspective, and like, how do they find their calling?
Right? if you know where you're called, like, it's like, it's the greatest thing in the world, You know, you're making a difference, you have purpose, you're able to express autonomy, mastery, like, like, that's what it's about. But maybe a freshman coming in has no idea what any of those words mean. Well, one of the things that I know that we do in our school, at least in our department, is that when freshmen, when incoming freshmen come in, they are given an opportunity to go down a leadership path where they learn the concepts of emotional intelligence, where they learn about forgiveness and kindness and team building and all the things that are necessary. And I will take the fault that I deserve with this over the years. I probably not in my classrooms really made the room for that, because I'm too busy talking about the founding of the administrative state, or I'm trying to get to the Kestenbaum Commission or something like that. But I've started changing.
In fact, I was working on notes earlier today because the semester for us starts next week. And I was working on notes earlier today. And I have started including time at the beginning of class to just be like, you know what, call it a check in, call it whatever you want to call it. But let's just get to know each other. And it was found is that the students are very surprised by that because they're like, Oh, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be here to learn this topic. And I'm like, Yeah, you care about me. We'll get to that.
I promise we're going to get to that. But look, we know, especially for adult learners, we know that people that are comfortable, that feel safe, that feel like they're in a place where they can speak and be open, they learn better and they retain more. So why wouldn't we want to build that environment, Yeah, totally. Maybe maybe last question because it kind of I think it folds in nicely. And I'm from a liberal arts background. So I also can't help being biased, Do you think everything that's again, as soon as intelligence is on tap, it's like, What does that mean? I can't help but thinking the rigor that I went through, going to a liberal arts education, right, where they're breaking me down, like as a human, right, where I like leave after a semester going, I don't even know what anything means, And I'm playing soccer tease to everybody, And, I wonder, right, is this actually an interesting opportunity where it might be kind of like a resurrection era, so to say, for a liberal arts, what a real liberal arts education, whatever that means that inevitably will probably there's a lot we agree on.
And then by the nature of liberal arts, everybody will always have a different perspective. But is this an opportunity for a resurrection of a liberal arts education? I think so. And you know where I see this, not only in liberal arts programs, but also just in, I used to teach in a medical school. And I can tell you that in the graduation for medical schools, nowadays, you hear a lot of discussion about humility and you learn, you hear a lot about empathy and listening skills. And I remember walking into a class one time of second year medical students, and I went in and I said, Okay, I know you all have been told that you're the smartest people on earth for most of your life. And someone raised their hand and said, Not after that last biochem exam, we weren't.
And everyone tried. But I think I think it's kind of a reintroduction of humanity. It's the need of the need and the need for all of us to connect with one another. that's why we laugh. That's the benefit of being kind to one another is the need for, for, for a village for everyone to look out for and just to be there. And it doesn't mean that it can't be competitive. Sure, that's fine.
It can be competitive. Absolutely. You can strive to be the best. And we can put systems in place to support all that. But in reality, it really is about kind of that reintroduction of the human side. And I think we're at a good place for that right now. I there was a writer and she was a teacher as well back in the 20s and 30s named Mary Parker Follett.
And she's one of my favorite authors. Mary Parker Follett back in the 20s was talking about the need for humans to come together, to learn together, to grow together. And then we'll get to the performance and then we'll get to productivity. But when you attack the human side first, you're always going to have better outcomes on the other side for sure. I hope we're there. I do. Yeah, it's definitely an opportunity to think to focus more, more intently on.
Well, awesome. And Patrick, it's been great having you on this, on this Bow Tie Tuesday. And yeah, really appreciate your thoughts. And I think people can also talk about and think not just of the things that they're scared of with AI, But how do we make a, how do we make a better future? Absolutely. It's out there for us for sure. Awesome.
Well, cheers, man.