Leaders who delegate thrive. Learn how you can leverage competitive advantage theory to prevent burnout and get more done.

Being a leader is exhausting. You have an endless to-do list, yet there are only so many hours in a day. You don’t want to overburden your team, and you know they don’t share your exact skillset. This makes you likely to fall into the insidious “work harder” trap. This is a bad place to be.

As we all know (because we have all been there), the “work harder” trap leads to overwork, which leads to burnout and the inability to lead. Not only can this be disastrous for your career, but Harvard Business Review researchers suggests that it also goes against the tenets of one of the leading theories of business efficiency: the Theory of Competitive Advantage.

This theory, proposed by David Ricardo, a political economist in the 1800s, states that nations [or leaders] should focus their time and attention on activities for which they have a “comparative advantage.” For example, Portugal should concentrate on making wine for export because it has a lot of sunshine to grow delicious grapes. England should focus on making wool for export because their moist climate supports sheep. Portugal can’t compete with England on wool, and England can never create the exact rich wine Portugal can.

Once you consider it, this theory makes a lot of sense for leadership. Integrating this theory into your daily activities can drive better efficiency without you having to work harder.

To get started, HBR researchers recommend following these four steps:

1. Remove all tasks for which you lack an absolute advantage

First, stop doing tasks that you or others feel you should do, especially if the only reason you should do them is because that is how things have always been done.

If you feel you should do something that someone else can do just as well, let them do it.

Of course, delegating tasks to other people can be an issue. You have probably experienced the crushing administrative work of sharing and explaining personalized information and processes you have refined over time.

Therefore, to succeed with this step, you will need to ensure that your ERP or other business management software allows you to securely share:

• One single, up-to-date source of data with your staff
• Understandable, visual-based insight drawn from easy-to-create dashboards and widgets

2. Delegate tasks for which you have little comparative advantage

Once you eliminate should-do’s from your task list, it will be time to tackle can-do’s. These are the tasks you can do well but that others can do nearly as well as you. Your time is limited, so you should focus only on tasks you are far better at than others.

Of course, this means you will be delegating many tasks, and you will need all hands on deck to help out. To make the task handover a success, you will want to ensure your business software allows for unlimited users.

If your software gives you the freedom to securely add unlimited users at no additional charge, you can delegate those time-consuming can-do tasks to:

• Subordinates on your team
• Other people in the company
• Clients or customers
• Vendors
• Outsourcers

3. Take on tasks for which you have a strong comparative advantage

After you have freed up time and space for yourself by getting those should-do’s and can-do’s off your list, you can finally begin to focus on items for which you have a strong comparative advantage. These are the things you can do better than anyone else and which make a decisive difference in your company’s performance.

But beware: although you may know where you have a comparative advantage, your organization may not know. In these cases, you may run into obstacles. Luckily, Harvard Business Review has advice to help:

• Think outside the box. HBR researchers define functional fixedness as “the bias that limits a person to using an object [or business tool] only in the way it is traditionally used (for instance, not realizing that a book could serve as a doorstop).”
• Try to overcome your or your company’s habits, social norms, or biases. These limit your potential. Great leaders never settle for “good enough” processes; they use their resources to challenge the status quo and demonstrate their comparative advantage by improving those processes.

As an example, the HBR article discusses “Lisa.” This accountant typically sends out monthly financial summaries in dense reports but decides one month to include a concise infographic highlighting key points. Soon, departments that previously skimmed her emails begin actively engaging with her insights and use them to become more effective in their roles.

To ensure you can showcase your skillset and to encourage others across your organization to showcase theirs, you will want to ensure your business software provides high levels of flexibility for:

• Operations
• Workflows
• Insight
• Trying out new and better ways to accomplish routine tasks

4. Make sure you have enough time to do those tasks you have a comparative advantage in

With today’s constant pace of change, leaders need to be proactive instead of reactive. But if you always feel like you are running out of time, you will almost certainly be reactive.

Of course, delegating tasks will save you a lot of laborious hours, but you won’t want to underestimate the time it takes to accomplish the strategic, highly cognitive tasks you are best at. Therefore, you need to ensure that your business software streamlines time-consuming processes so you can do your job more efficiently. Specifically, you should avoid any system that requires you to dig through data to find answers.

Instead, you will want to find a business management system that delivers:

• Real-time insight, including customizable dashboards and widgets that offer full drill-down
• The ability for you to set up and run instant, flexible data inquiries with no involvement from IT
• A secure, helpful Al-powered chatbot you can ask questions of and get immediate, reliable answers in plain language

Is Your Business Software Supporting Leadership at Your Company or Hindering It?

Although leaders always imagine a future in which they will finally complete their to-do lists and have more time, that is a daydream.

The truth is that, as an effective leader, you will never get more time. No matter how much you accomplish from your to-do list, you will always be busy; there will always be more tasks lurking; and you will always need secure, effective, and effortless ways to delegate work.

As a leader, your main job is to unleash potential in yourself and the people who follow you. Does your software support you in that — or does it hold you back?

With Acumatica Cloud ERP, you can get all hands on deck at your company and showcase your competitive advantage because the modern, cloud-based ERP gives you the freedom to:

• Add unlimited users to your system at no additional cost
• Share real-time data and collaborate securely with all stakeholders
• Customize your insight using dashboards, widgets, generic inquiries, and an AI-driven intelligent assistant

In short, Acumatica helps you improve leadership across your organization, saving time and allowing your company to focus on its own competitive advantage.

Learn More: Access the White Paper & Discover
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Accounting Business Solutions is a respected accounting and business management software solution provider. We provide experienced sales, consulting, implementation, training and support services for small to medium-sized companies located in south central and southeast Texas. Our portfolio of solutions includes cloud-based, hosted and on-premises options.

 

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Sources

“Leaders Shouldn’t Try to Do It All,” Harvard Business Review, January 2025. https://hbr.org/2025/01/leaders-shouldnt-try-to-do-it-all

“Why Real-Time Leadership Is So Hard,” Harvard Business Review, January 2024. https://hbr.org/2024/01/why-real-time-leadership-is-so-hard