Conflict Resolution Management

I am not a conflict resolution manager or career counselor but last week I felt like one. The head of dept was letting a teacher know about something that he didn't like about this guy's performance. So he calls me into the room with the other guy because he felt like I was a third party and could give objective advice. Myself, though, I felt very uncomfortable because I did not want to offend either party by my advice. But in the end I successfully managed to give advice that didn't offend any of them by telling them that it all boiled down to communication. My advice consisted of the following:

A manager needs to communicate announcements timely to his subordinates and his subordinates should not be afraid to tell the manager when they could not complete a task. If you can't complete something you should communicate and tell the manager you can't get it done instead of not saying anything. If you don't say anything then the manager will think you didn't even start the task and he or she will get annoyed at you or even think you are performing poorly, when in fact you did start the task you just could not get it done. Also one should tell the manager about any problems one is facing so that if one needs help the manager can help find the resources in order to get the task done. At the same time a manager needs to create a friendly environment so that his subordinates aren't afraid to tell him any problems. I am thinking in this case the culture in TZ is to not be direct so as not to offend anyone so I am guessing the guy was afraid to tell the head he couldn't get his task done for that reason. But the head went to school abroad so he has adopted this direct manner of communication so he expected his subordinate to be direct with him. Open, honest communication- it is important in the world. But at the same time understanding culture matters in order to work effectively with one another.