Case Study Of Maria Ramos

Maria Ramos, an incredible person and a renowned business leader with a remarkable gift for consumer driven performance. Her story of extraordinary success began in 1983 when she received her first diploma from the Institute of Bankers, she then moved on to earn her BCom honours in economics from Wits university in1987 and then finally a MSc in economics from the university of London in 1992, she has since received honorary doctorates from the university of the free state and from Stellenbosch university. It was this determination for success and self improvement that finally earned her the position of the worlds 10th most powerful business women in the world by Fortune Magazine’s annual ranking, the only South African woman to appear on the

Thekiso Anthony Lefiladi, a leading journalist for business day and the financial times claims that there is a clear disconnect between the lead management of ABSA and its employees, clearly showing us that Maria Ramos does not have a very firm control over the current situation, thus opening up opportunities from opposing companies to steal customers due to lack of quality service, this is actually the case as Capitec CEO Riaan Stassen claims that the majority of his new customers are switching from ABSA bank.

Secondly she has chosen to adopt an autocratic leadership style, while it is good in situations where strict control is necessary, it is detrimental to businesses that have got effective authoritative structures in place, such is the case in her current position as CEO as ABSA where her leadership style has lead to a fall of 14 % in share prices, according to business day live.

The last weakness that I am going to mention is a lack of moral integrity; this can be deduced as she has admitted to being involved in fraudulently scheming thousands of public transport workers out of their pension funds and by her own admittance being involved in the arms deal

She is an effective manager of people, possessing:

Communication Competency skills, as were discussed earlier, able to transfer information, effectively negotiate in hostile situations and being able to resolve conflict between two parties, makes her a key tool to have in any business.

She possess a strong quality of being able to make extensive plans for the future, as was the case of Transnet, she was able to determine what decisions had to be made, who had to make them and what they needed, this is a large reason of why her Transnet transformation was so successful.

But most importantly she possesses a vital instinctive strategic action competency, by using the above tools to align them in the strategic direction of the business, set goals and then check to make sure that the business performs accordingly. Her work in both the public and private sector is evidence of her deep understanding of all of the environments.

This could lead to many opportunities for Maria, the three mentioned competencies alone would be enough for her to get a good job just about anywhere that she chooses, both public and private