Abstract:

Purpose -    The purpose of the study is to identify the impact of three leadership style (paternalistic, transformational and transactional) on psychological empowerment and the moderating effect of gender.  Methodology -   The Survey method was used to gather data from 97 people working in middle and lower levels in various organizations and the analysis was conducted with SPSS 19. Four validated survey instruments were used to obtain the data: (1) The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), formulated by Bass and Avolio (1995), (2) The Paternalistic Leadership Scale developed by Voich (1995), (3) The Global Transformational Leadership Scale (GTL) developed by Carless, Wearing and Mann(2000) and (4) The Psychological Empowerment Scale developed by Spreitzer (1995). Findings- The study shows that there is a positive but partial relationship between the Transformational Leadership style and Psychological Empowerment, but there is no relationship between Paternalistic Leadership, Transactional Leadership as predicted. Conclusion- Transformational leadership style has been identified as one of the most important ways to empower employees in organizations in the light of findings. 

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