Often managers find themselves in the middle of workplace disputes they have no interest or business in solving. And while it’s important that managers have the interpersonal skills to mediate disagreements, it is not their job to play arbitrator during every petty dispute. It’s important that a manager know when and how to intervene, and more importantly, when to step away. Of course, different circumstances call for different responses, so it is impossible to draw hard and fast rules regarding conflict resolution. There are certain cases where the path to resolution is clear, however. Issues of harassment must be dealt with immediately, or if an employee’s poor performance is dragging the rest of the team down, the manager should intervene. However, if the dispute has to do with a disagreement in strategy over a certain project, it might be time for the manager to take a more passive role, allowing employees to solve the problem themselves. It is essential that employees are given this room to grow; they need the autonomy and authority to solve their own problems at times. If managers are always rushing to the rescue, valuable time will be lost, and employees will never learn the conflict resolution skills necessary to take them to the next level in their careers.