EQ Matters More Than IQ for Team Success MIT Study Finds

In a groundbreaking study at MIT, Professor Alex Pentland and his team have upended traditional views on teamwork. Named by Forbes as one of the seven most powerful data scientists in the world, Pentland has spent much of his career exploring a critical question:

How do teams work?

For decades, the myth of solitary genius has persisted—that innovation is born from individual brilliance. However, Pentland’s research, backed by 30 years of inquiry, reveals that the real source of creativity and productivity is the collective intelligence of teams.

From boardrooms to sports fields, leaders are grappling with the same question: what makes certain teams more effective? Pentland's work provides a compelling answer. Teams develop unique dynamics that can either fuel or hinder success, and individual IQ alone isn't the key to predicting performance.

EQ beats IQ for Teamwork

Pentland and his team studied hundreds of small groups performing a variety of tasks. To their surprise, the group’s average IQ was only moderately linked to performance. Even the IQ of the smartest member wasn’t a strong predictor of success.

So, if IQ wasn’t the answer, what was?

The Discovery: Emotional Intelligence

Pentland’s breakthrough came when he focused on emotional intelligence. In one part of the study, team members took the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test, designed to measure empathy and social awareness, both aspects of emotional intelligence. The results were telling: the teams that scored highest on empathy and relationship skills were far more productive, innovative, and collaborative.

Pentland’s research, later published in the Harvard Business Review, revealed that emotional intelligence (EQ) mattered more than IQ when it came to predicting team success. Teams with high EQ were able to foster trust, accountability, and inclusivity, all of which created fertile ground for creativity and problem-solving.

RocheMartin’s Real-World Validation: Sky Media’s ECR Research

At Sky Media, we conducted our own research on emotional intelligence, using the Emotional Capital Report (ECR) 360 framework, which further validated Pentland's findings. We sought to improve key performance indicators like innovation by embedding emotional competencies in leadership teams.

In our study, 104 leaders from an average of 10 teams participated in the “Better Self” leadership program, which focused on emotional intelligence. They were divided into three groups based on their innovation output:

• Group M: The most innovative.
• Group L: Delivered average innovation.
• Group O: The least innovative.

All three groups scored above average on emotional intelligence, but Group M, the most innovative teams of leaders, excelled in four specific emotional competencies: Self-Actualisation, Adaptability, Relationship Skills, and Empathy. These competencies were the key drivers behind successful innovation, confirming that emotional intelligence was not just linked to leadership effectiveness, but also to creativity.

Much like Pentland’s findings, our research showed that emotionally intelligent leaders created psychological safety and inclusivity, which drove superior performance and innovation.

EQ and Collective Team Genius

Both MIT's study and RocheMartin’s research point to a clear conclusion: emotional intelligence is critical for unlocking a team’s potential. High IQ and technical skills are no longer enough. Teams built on empathy, trust, and collaboration are the ones that succeed in today’s fast-paced, innovation-driven world.

As Pentland discovered, social intelligence and empathy create the psychological safety teams need to thrive. At Sky Media, we’ve seen that leaders with strong emotional intelligence not only lead more effective teams but also foster greater innovation and creative output and take more products to market successfully. The evidence is clear: EQ matters more than IQ for team success.

 ¹Alex Pentland, The New Science of Building Great Teams. HBR, April 2012.