 If an employee discusses sexual harassment with a manager, and is dismissed, regardless of the merit of the claim or seriousness of the incident, the dismissal by the manager would go toward showing that the employee is incapable of receiving a satisfactory resolution and would increase the likelihood of litigation.
Rule 7 – Document Everything. A manager should document everything related to performance, misconduct, discipline and evaluations of an employee that may ultimately lead to an employee’s termination.   If indeed an employee is incompetent, if there is no documentation, then there is little evidence to support termination.  Suppose a manager tells an employee several times to shape up their performance, if they never document it, they must then testify that they told the employee a number of warnings, but never documented it.  This gives the jury a very bad impression of the manager in question.
Rule 8 – Be Consistent.  A manager must never treat people differently based on prohibited factors.  In fact, it should be a goal of every manager to treat everyone as equally as possible.  Obviously, if people are treated differently along lines of a protected class, this is clearly an example of discrimination, but treating your friends differently than others may create the appearance of impropriety. Suppose a White manager allowed his college friends, who all happened to be white, to rearrange their schedules but denied a similar request by a black employee.  While this may have been just a favor to his friends, the manager has now created a situation where there appears to be racial discrimination.
Rule 9 – Be Safety Conscious.  A manager should always report accidents in the workplace and adhere to the standards of workplace safety set by OSHA.  The manager should never tolerate deviations from best practices in safety arena as it creates an atmosphere of tolerance to violations.  If a roofer does not wear his safety gear and falls from the roof the success of a lawsuit filed on the employee’s behalf may hinge upon whether the manager was aggressive in stamping out safety violations or was lax in their administration of rules.  
Rule 10 – Seek Help in Unusual Circumstances.  A manager should do their best to be knowledgeable about employment scenarios that occur everyday, but he should also realize that the company employs specialists for a reason.  When in doubt, spread it out.   In scenarios where the manager is unfamiliar, he should always consult specialist whether that be a supervisor, HR or EEO.  If an employee asks a question about FMLA, rather than hazard a guess, refer them to HR who can handle questions with information and answers that may not misrepresent the stance of the company.
Rule 11 – Consider Implications of Leave or Special Requests.  A manager should do their best to consider the implications of leave, and should do so from the point of view of the company.  It is almost certainly inconvenient to comply with FMLA and other legal requirements where leave is considered, however, the ramifications of not complying with such legislation would be far more costly and inconvenient. 