Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of empowerment on the relationship between paternalistic leadership styles such as benevolent, moral, and authoritarian and employee innovative behavior. Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected from 390 employees of manufacturing companies in the Republic of Korea. To assess the validity of hypotheses we used a structural equation modeling procedure. Findings: The findings suggest that empowerment mediates the relationships among moral and authoritarian leadership styles and employee innovative behavior. However, results indicate that employee innovative behavior does not mediate the associations between benevolent leadership style and employee innovative behavior. Originality/value: Our work is the first to investigate the mediating role of empowerment on the link between paternalistic leadership styles such as benevolent, moral, and authoritarian and employee innovative behavior.