Editor’s Note: Jim Henson died on May 16, 1990. In honor of the 25th anniversary of his passing, we are re-running this celebration of his leadership.

Jim Henson is remembered as a visionary artist and the creator of the Muppets, but he was also the boss of hundreds of employees who called him “fearless leader.”

Dave Goelz, who performs Gonzo, recalled: “We had a reunion last year, and many past employees came. Over and over we heard them say it was the best job they ever had.” It almost seems over-the-top, but when you see tears well up in Frank Oz’s eyes at the funeral of his friend and mentor, it dispels all cynicism.

We intuitively know that Henson was a “good boss.” But how should we define a “good boss,” and better yet, how can we become one? Brian Henson has said of his father:

He taught me to identify a person’s talent, nurture that talent, and encourage them to look to themselves for a solution.

A good boss, like a good teacher, empowers his employees. This, though, is too easy to say and very hard to actually do. Most of us have egos that get in the way, worrying we will be thought of as too soft, slow, or indecisive. Henson’s agent said he “rarely spoke above a whisper.” Henson’s wife Jane said he was “so patient she sometimes want[ed] to kick him.” The creator of Kermit the Frog had what was indeed a very rare management style.

In our era of interconnected gadgets, we tend to exalt the self-made men of Silicon Valley, hard-headed entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, because they cut through the traditional business models and invent their own way of doing business. Yet biographers paint Jobs as egotistical and abrasive. According to Pixar profiler David Price, “He made a habit of informing Atari engineers that they were moronic and their designs were lousy.” To Jim Henson, this kind of “leadership” wasn’t necessary.

It is easy for CEOs to say that they want to foster creativity, but it takes a radical approach to actually create that kind of environment. Steve Jobs famously put only two bathrooms in the Pixar Studio so people would be forced to interact. Yet this is superficial and dictatorial, not to mention inconsiderate to employees’ bladders. The real way to create innovation and collaboration is by setting an example–starting with oneself.