Public Administration Course - Capstone Project Example

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the investigative arm for the Department of Homeland Security. ICE has over 20,000 employees in all 50 states and in 47 foreign countries. The primary responsibility of ICE is to enforce existing laws regarding border security, customs, trade, and immigration through civil and criminal means. The ICE is made up of different branches that are integrated to carry out the basic mission of ICE. One of the branches of ICE is known as the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor.

This office provides legal advice, training, and services for ICE, as well as litigates cases that are under the auspices of ICE.The ICE current has management issues that need to be addressed. One of these issues is how management is involved with and communicates with subordinates. Another issue is how does management distributes tasks and assignments to employees. The third issue is how does management provides oversight for productivity and accountability. The fourth issue is how does the manager persist in exhibiting ethical behavior.

Within these main concerns, the management must also be aware that the employees need to be more properly trained. Management must also understand the capabilities of their subordinates, which means that they must get to know their subordinate's strengths and weaknesses so that an employee's strengths may be used to accomplish tasks and possible weaknesses may be shored up so that the employee becomes more well-rounded. Some of the areas that management may need training in would be generally how to manage people, how to distribute tasks to the staff, how to organize their thoughts, and how to work with employees and how to encourage employees to work with one another.

The literature regarding leadership and group dynamic would provide some guidance on how ICE may improve its stability of management employees. By choosing managers with the right qualities that would be a fit for any given part of the organization, the ICE management team can be strengthened.