If you’ve fallen into the micromanagement trap, you might be killing your company morale without even realizing it. With Gallup finding 70 percent of employees are currently disengaged in the workforce, it’s important for you to break the micromanagement addiction now.

The link between a company’s success and their employee engagement and morale isn’t hard to find. A study by Dale Carnegie found 40 percent of employees who felt their leadership didn’t micromanage were also more engaged in the workplace. And 42 percent of the most engaged employees felt their talents were being utilized and recognized, rather than micromanaged.

We all want to make sure our teams stays on track, and that productivity is aligned with goals, and projects are completed correctly. The urge to micromanage is understandable, but this doesn’t make it easier for your employees to deal with. When you micromanage your team, you are implying that you don’t trust their talents or judgement.

Here are four ways to break your micromanaging addiction, empower your workforce, and increase morale and productivity:

Visualize Your Workforce

Micromanagement occurs because managers and executives want to understand what is happening on the ground floor of their company. They need to ensure work is being completed on time and workers are striving toward the right goals. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see everything happening at your company. However, problems arise when you need to stand over the shoulders of your talented employees to do so.

What you need is easy visualization into the work happening throughout your company. Talent alignment platforms can provide a complete picture of your workflow, so you don’t have to guess what anyone is working on or where any holdups may occur. Since you can clearly visualize the entire workflow process whenever you’d like, you can identify which team members need extra help and which can fly on their own.

Empower Employees With Goals

Some 75 to 80 percent of American workers have suffered from micromanagement at some point in their career. Obviously, managers need to work on finding a better way to keep employees on track without disempowering them. In fact, one-third of workers have changed jobs because of micromanagers. With employee turnover costing at least one-fifth of an employee’s salary, you really can’t afford to keep ignoring this problem.

This is one reason you need to help employees focus on how their work contributes to overall company goals. It’s far too easy for your best people to get caught up in the daily activities of their position and start to lose sight of the bigger picture. There’s less need to micromanage if your team is empowered to keep tabs on their own progress. By providing employees a way to see goals on a day-to-day basis, they always understand how their efforts contribute to the company whole.

Communicate Daily

Much of the micromanagement problem stems from poor communication. With employees not understanding how their work contributes to the larger goals, it’s easy for them to become misaligned. Simple misalignment can cause managers to panic. Soon, they’re over-correcting by focusing too narrowly on employees. According to our recent “How Leaders Grow Today” survey with Dale Carnegie, less than six percent of companies are communicating goals on a daily basis.

Constant communication isn’t micromanagement, it’s keeping your team in the loop so they’re empowered to take ownership over their own work. Since your employees know exactly what the company is striving for and how their work aligns, they can more clearly focus their own efforts to ensure projects are completed and deadlines are met. Talent alignment platforms can help with the easy visualization of goals, so workers don’t need to be reminded of what they’re working towards. From the management side, communication should increase with more frequent check-ins and increased openness to hear the concerns of your workforce. With this stronger and more consistent communication, managers can avoid hovering over employees’ shoulders.

Reward Productivity

Micromanaging is extremely annoying to most employees, but it’s also damaging to morale. It is a method of negatively reinforcing the behavior you want. But in fact, positive reinforcement is much more effective for long-term results and engagement. A Gallup poll found employees were more engaged after receiving strengths-based feedback, and 12.5 percent more productive as well. Instead of focusing on the negative through micromanagement, reward the positive.

Managers should reward the employees who are completing their work, hitting their goals, and staying ahead of deadlines. Your team will see the company is paying attention to more than just their mistakes and that it pays to put in hard work. Rewards increase engagement by showing the company values employees and trusts their judgement.

It’s time to leave micromanagement behind and find a better way to motivate your employees. With goal alignment, improved communication, and smart rewards you can keep your workforce on track without hovering.

What do you think? How do you avoid micromanaging? Share in the comments!