Research Says Star Talent Alone Won't Save Your Team. But Why?

Forbes

16-05-2025

SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - May 10: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola before the Premier League match ... More at St Mary's Stadium, Southampton. (Photo by Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)
Leaders love to talk about talent. Hiring top performers is often seen as the surest path to innovation, agility and competitive advantage. Whether in Fortune 500 boardrooms or high-growth startups, leaders prize elite résumés and high-potential hires—believing that the more stars you have, the better your team will perform.
But what if that logic is flawed? What if adding more top talent doesn't automatically lead to better outcomes, and might actually undermine them?
That's the question at the heart of research published in Academy of Management Discoveries, titled 'When More Is Less: The Role of Social Capital in Managing Talent in Teams.' The underlying study—conducted by Andy Loignon and Sirish Shrestha of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), along with Fabio Fonti and Mehdi Bagherzadeh of NEOMA Business School and Andrei Gurca of Queen's University Belfast—shows that the relationship between talent and performance is more complicated than many leaders assume.
As legendary soccer coach Pep Guardiola once put it: 'When people say Manchester City Football Club wins because Pep spent money, I say this is true. Absolutely true. Without intelligent players, good skills, good quality—it is impossible.' But what Guardiola also knows (and what the research confirms) is that talent is only part of the story. Without the right conditions, even the most skilled teams can underperform.
The study analyzed performance data from men's professional soccer teams across Europe's top five leagues. These are clubs where player value is measured in millions of dollars and talent is stacked across the roster. Still, even among the sport's elite, outcomes varied widely.
Crucially, teams with similar levels of individual skill produced very different results. Loignon, a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership, explained that what made the difference wasn't who was on the team, but how the team operated. Specifically, the researchers examined passing networks: how players distributed the ball during a match. Bagherzadeh, a professor in the department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at NEOMA Business School, explained that teams with decentralized passing—where more players shared responsibility and played interdependently—consistently outperformed those where ball movement was overly reliant on one or two stars.
The takeaway? Teams with high talent but low connectivity underperform. And that's not unique to sports. The same principle applies in business. Star employees who operate in silos (or teams that orbit around a single dominant voice) rarely outperform more collaborative, integrated groups. It's not about how brilliant your people are, but how well they interact.
This study reinforces a crucial distinction that every leader should understand. Human capital refers to what people know and can do. Social capital refers to how people interact, collaborate and build trust. While many organizations focus heavily on human capital (recruiting, retaining and rewarding top talent) they often neglect the social systems that determine whether that talent delivers.
At the Center for Creative Leadership, this insight is foundational. CCL defines leadership not just as a role or trait, but as a social process: one in which individuals collaborate to achieve outcomes they couldn't reach alone. This study extends that philosophy with rigorous data, showing that teams perform best when their workflows are distributed, collaborative and intentionally structured.
In fact, the researchers found that teams made up of less individually talented members can sometimes outperform more gifted teams—if they work together more effectively. As Loignon explained, it's not just about who's on the team, but how the team functions. Even a group without big-name stars (like West Ham United Football Club) can outperform a more talented opponent (like Arsenal Football Club) when roles are clearly defined and collaboration is strong. A recent example: West Ham's 1–0 win over Arsenal at Arsenal's own stadium—a match that seriously weakened Arsenal's chances of winning the English Premier League. The lesson? Raw talent isn't enough. Without the right structure and teamwork, even the most skilled individuals may fall short.
LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 22: Jarrod Bowen of West Ham United scores a goal past David Raya of ... More Arsenal during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and West Ham United FC at Emirates Stadium. (Photo by)
The implications for business leaders are profound. Many executive teams are built like all-star rosters: packed with highly capable individuals but often lacking cohesion or shared purpose. In these settings, adding more top talent can create diminishing returns—or worse, increase dysfunction.
To avoid this trap, the study suggests three strategic shifts that organizations can begin applying right away.
First, leaders should stop assuming that more talent will always drive better performance. Particularly in highly interdependent environments—cross-functional teams, innovation hubs or product squads—too many dominant voices can erode clarity, increase competition and stifle collaboration.
Second, organizations must shift focus from 'who' to 'how.' Instead of obsessing over individual brilliance, leaders should ask how people interact. Who collaborates with whom? Where does information or work flow, or bottleneck? Is responsibility shared, or does it default to a few visible contributors?
Third, leadership itself must evolve. Great leaders act not only as motivators but as designers of collaboration. That means building systems where trust, communication and role clarity are intentionally cultivated. And, like the researchers found, it also means ensuring the system can respond to setbacks and unforeseen circumstances ultimately, structuring their team's social dynamics that help their people do their best work.
The most successful teams of the future won't be the ones with the flashiest credentials or biggest personalities. They'll be the ones designed for deep collaboration, shared ownership and adaptive workflows. That's especially true in today's landscape, where hybrid work, global teams and agile business models demand more than individual contribution—they require networked coordination.
An accompanying animated explainer from the Academy of Management illustrates the research's implications in a concise visual summary. But its message is best captured by the study's core insight: the best teams aren't just built—they're engineered for connection.
That means moving beyond talent acquisition toward talent orchestration. It means treating team design as a strategic competency. And it means accepting that more is not always more, especially when what you really need is cohesion, not just capability.
In the rush to build high-performing teams, it's easy to be dazzled by résumés, pedigree and past performance. But the true challenge of leadership isn't assembling talent—it's enabling that talent to deliver.
That requires a shift in mindset. Leaders must ask not just 'Do I have the right people?' but 'Have I built the right environment?' Are workflows inclusive? Are interactions decentralized? Are roles fluid enough to respond to real-time demands, but stable enough to ensure accountability?
Because when performance matters most, it's not just about who's on the team. It's about how the team works.