{"id":12752,"date":"2026-04-11T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T02:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/jon-levy-on-why-team-intelligence-outperforms-star-leadership\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T02:07:14","slug":"jon-levy-on-why-team-intelligence-outperforms-star-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/jon-levy-on-why-team-intelligence-outperforms-star-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Levy on Why Team Intelligence Outperforms Star Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>What if the reason your team isn\u2019t performing has nothing to do with talent?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jon Levy<\/strong>, a behavioral scientist and <em>New York Times<\/em> bestselling author of <em>Team Intelligence<\/em>, has spent 15 years having dinner with Nobel laureates, Olympians, and astronauts to find out. Over 431 dinners, he\u2019s gotten a front-row seat to how the most accomplished people in the world think, connect, and build things together.<\/p>\n<p>What he finds doesn\u2019t match what the leadership industry has been selling. In his conversation on the Mindvalley Book Club with <strong>Kristina M\u00e4nd-Lakhiani<\/strong>, Jon makes a case that quietly dismantles almost everything we assume about what makes a great team.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Watch the full interview:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What makes teams truly successful with Jon Levy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rLPrncGqu6M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What makes teams truly successful with Jon Levy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rLPrncGqu6M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/noscript>\n<\/p><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">What makes teams truly successful with Jon Levy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-leadership-development-industry-has-been-solving-the-wrong-problem\">The leadership development industry has been solving the wrong problem<\/h2>\n<p>The leadership industry has been built on a single assumption: that if you develop better individual leaders, better teams follow. However, according to Jon, that assumption is the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Individual leadership ability is not what drives team performance. What drives it is team dynamics, like how people connect, communicate, and work together.<\/p>\n<p>The leader was never the variable that mattered most. The team was. And yet everything we\u2019ve built an entire industry around developing the individual leader\u2014business schools, consultancies, corporate training programs, <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/free-leadership-classes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">leadership classes<\/a>, you name it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Management is human interaction<\/em>,\u201d Jon tells Kristina, \u201c<em>and there\u2019s about a billion different ways human beings can be a pain in the butt, and you can\u2019t prepare for something like that sitting in a classroom<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford Graduate School of Business professor, and researcher Christina Fong\u2019s analysis of MBA outcomes shows that <a href=\"https:\/\/jeffreypfeffer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/AMLE-Sep2002-end-of-bus-26.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">graduates don\u2019t outperform non-MBAs at the one, three, or seven-year mark<\/a>. What\u2019s more, Future Market Insights\u2019 Leadership Development Program Market Forecast and Outlook (2026 \u2013 2036) found that, globally, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.futuremarketinsights.com\/reports\/leadership-development-program-market\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">companies are projected to spend nearly $100 billion on leadership development<\/a> in 2026 alone. But according to Barbara Kellerman\u2019s research at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School, the industry has produced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hks.harvard.edu\/publications\/end-leadership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">no meaningful or measurable improvement in the quality of leadership<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The deeper problem, Jon argues, is that we\u2019ve been measuring the wrong unit entirely. As he points out in his book, \u201c<em>The smallest unit of effectiveness at work isn\u2019t a leader or an individual. It\u2019s a team<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-jon-levy-says-is-actually-causing-it-and-how-to-fix-it\">What Jon Levy says is actually causing it, and how to fix it<\/h2>\n<p>Jon has a name for what most organizations have accidentally built: a culture of super chickens.<\/p>\n<p><em>What?<\/em> That\u2019s right. Chickens.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You see, in the 1980s, an evolutionary biologist named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/285180241_Genetic_Influences_on_the_Behavior_of_Chickens_Associated_with_Welfare_and_Productivity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">William Muir<\/a> ran an experiment with chickens. He took the highest-producing individual chickens (the stars) and bred them together, generation after generation.<\/p>\n<p>The result was a disaster. Because when you reward pure individual productivity, the only way to get more is to take from everyone else. The chickens turned violent, pecking each other to death to access more resources.<\/p>\n<p>So Muir tried something different. Instead of selecting the most productive individual chickens, he selected the most productive teams. Six generations later, his prosocial super teams demolished the individual super chickens in head-to-head competition. They worked together, and that made all the difference.<\/p>\n<p>Jon\u2019s point with sharing this metaphor is that most modern workplaces have accidentally run Muir\u2019s first experiment. We measure what\u2019s easy to count and reward accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>When we incentivize people on personal bonuses and personal status<\/em>,\u201d Jon shares with <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/kristina-mand-lakhiani\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kristina<\/a>. \u201c<em>At a certain point, they can only achieve that by taking away resources and status from other people<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And when that happens, talented people end up competing against their own teammates instead of alongside them.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-there-s-no-i-in-team\">There\u2019s no \u201cI\u201d in \u201cteam\u201d<\/h3>\n<p>The fix starts with understanding what actually makes a team intelligent. Because here\u2019s the thing: the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/highest-iq-possible\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">highest IQ<\/a> on a team, according to Carnegie Mellon researcher Anita Williams Woolley\u2019s work, doesn\u2019t predict performance. Neither the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/average-iq-score-by-age\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">average IQ<\/a>, nor how much people like each other.<\/p>\n<p>What <em>does<\/em> predict it? The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.1193147\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dynamics between people<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Whether a team has alignment around a shared goal,<\/li>\n<li>Knows what to focus on and when, and<\/li>\n<li>Can access the full range of hard and <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/soft-skills\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">soft skills<\/a> its members bring.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And that\u2019s the importance of having, what Jon calls, a glue player. These are the people who know \u201c<em>how to create stronger connections and camaraderie between people<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his book, he highlights <a href=\"https:\/\/today.duke.edu\/2025\/04\/glue-person-everyone-needs-their-team\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Shane Battier,<\/a> a two-time NBA champion who played alongside LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. Shane touched the ball only 2% of his time on the court, yet the Heat won back-to-back championships with him on the roster.<\/p>\n<p>What was he doing in the other 98% of the time? Reading the room, asking the question no one else would ask, and making sure his teammates understood the play\u2014everything that never shows up in a box score.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Shane is a glue player, someone who may not have any specific technical skill that stands out at the superstar level but is so good with group dynamics, bonding, building trust, and elevating everyone\u2019\u2019 game that the team outperforms because of his participation<\/em>,\u201d Jon explains. \u201c<em>Glue players might not be the stars that shine the brightest, but their gravity is so strong that they pull everyone else in<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The unfortunate thing, though, is that the glue player is the hire most leaders never make. Why? Because nothing in a standard performance review makes them visible.<\/p>\n<p>But according to Jon, the leader\u2019s job isn\u2019t to be exceptional. Rather, it\u2019s to build conditions in which everyone else can be.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-jon-levy-on-what-team-intelligence-really-requires\">Jon Levy on what team intelligence really requires<\/h2>\n<p>Team intelligence, as Jon explains on the Mindvalley Book Club, is the collective ability of a group to reason, focus, and draw on its full range of skills to solve problems faster than any individual could alone. And most leaders miss it because they confuse leadership with accountability.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re <em>not<\/em> the same thing. The fact of the matter is, you might be the most senior person in the room and still be following someone else\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n<p>One example Jon gives is, let\u2019s say, you\u2019re a senior vice president. You\u2019re accountable for a result, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019re leading at all times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>You might have a marketing manager that\u2019s giving you advice and defining strategy<\/em>,\u201d Jon explains. \u201c<em>You might be in charge and accountable for the result, but you\u2019re actually following them<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His point is, the moment you stop confusing your title with your role, you stop feeling pressure to be good at everything. The skills you don\u2019t have aren\u2019t a weakness if someone on your team has them. And Jon\u2019s advice is simple: find the person who already has what you need and ask for their help.<\/p>\n<p>That same principle extends to how Jon thinks about <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/ai-for-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AI for business<\/a>. Rather than seeing it as a threat to human leadership, he sees it as another resource a team can draw on.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I think it will allow leaders to augment their skills, such as let\u2019s say we\u2019re in a meeting right now and I, let\u2019s say, didn\u2019t have very high <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mindvalley.com\/emotional-intelligence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>emotional intelligence<\/em><\/a>,\u201d he says. \u201c<em>A good AI agent would support me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The question, he argues, was never how to replace people but \u201c<em>how do we make teams as smart as possible to solve problems quickly<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the question <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/43Ci1v0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Team Intelligence<\/em><\/a> is built around. And if the conversation Jon has with Kristina on the Mindvalley Book Club is any indication, the answers will make you rethink almost everything you thought you knew about what it means to lead.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/43Ci1v0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"736\" alt=\"Team Intelligence by Jon Levy\" class=\"wp-image-79151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy.webp 2000w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy-768x283.webp 768w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy-1536x565.webp 1536w\" data-lazy-sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy.webp\"\/><noscript><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"736\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy.webp\" alt=\"Team Intelligence by Jon Levy\" class=\"wp-image-79151\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy.webp 2000w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy-768x283.webp 768w, https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/mv-prod-blog-en-assets\/2026\/04\/28ec1e5c-team-intelligence-jon-levy-1536x565.webp 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>(Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. If you make a purchase through it, Mindvalley Book Club may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)<\/em><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-fuel-your-mind\">Fuel your mind<\/h2>\n<p>Finding a book that genuinely changes how you think is rare. The <strong>Mindvalley Book Club<\/strong> makes it less so.<\/p>\n<p>Kristina M\u00e4nd-Lakhiani, the co-founder of Mindvalley, and her team read every featured book themselves, just like they did with <em>Team Intelligence<\/em> by Jon Levy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindvalley.com\/bookclub?utm_source=mv_blog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Join for free<\/strong><\/a> and get access to:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A curated list of 10 must-read personal growth and business books, delivered immediately<\/li>\n<li>Weekly picks. Three to five new releases every Monday, chosen for substance and impact<\/li>\n<li>A Book of the Week breakdown with a live author interview that goes beyond the highlight reel<\/li>\n<li>A global community of readers who are growing right alongside you<\/li>\n<li>The inspiration to read again, not because you have to, but because the right book makes everything click<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The right book at the right time changes <em>everything<\/em>. And your next breakthrough might just be one away.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome in.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/hop.clickbank.net\/?affiliate=infohatch&amp;vendor=J1R2C\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10614 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png\" alt=\"Profit Gen\" width=\"400\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px.png 400w, https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/profit-gen400px-300x163.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if the reason your team isn\u2019t performing has nothing to do with talent? Jon Levy, a behavioral scientist and New York Times bestselling author [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}