Employees aren’t children (by law in the United States, at least) but unsuccessful parents and bosses have one thing in common: they are expert demotivators. Skillful leadership is always a matter of nudging people in positive directions while respecting their ideas and autonomy – of empowering them to do what they’re good at in the service of something bigger than themselves. And for parents and CEOs alike, there’s a lot to be learned from that ancient teaching tool, the cautionary tale.

Jim Collins, New York Times bestselling author of Good to Great and (with coauthor Morten T. Hansen) Great by Choice, sees a lot of cautionary tales in his line of work. A former teacher at the Stanford Graduate School of business, Collins now runs a “management laboratory” in Boulder, Colorado where he conducts research into what gets and keeps companies significantly ahead of (or behind) the competition. Collins has closely scrutinized the management practices of hundreds of businesses and served as an advisor to CEOs nationwide. The best leaders, he says, don’t worry about motivating people – they hire passionate employees and don’t extinguish their passion.

What demotivates workers?

1) Hype: a failure to acknowledge the real difficulties the organization faces.
2) Futurism: Always “pointing down the road” at distant goals and not at the tangible results of employees’ recent efforts.
3) False democracy: Inviting people’s input when you’ve already made up your mind.