Abstract: Paternalistic leadership (PL) was based on Chinese traditional culture and different from western leadership theories. It was a basic character of organizations in Chinese culture, and had been found to be prevalent in kinds of Chinese organizations. Authoritarianism, benevolence, and moral leadership were regarded as three elements of paternalistic leadership. In this paper, a review of paternalistic leadership research was given and the deep cultural roots of PL were analyzed, the three-elements theory of paternalistic leadership and PLS (paternalistic leadership scale) were introduced. At last, the problems of PL research and research orientation are provided, for example, effectiveness of PL in specific fields and the relationships between the three elements of PL should be given more attention in the future

Key words: paternalistic leadership, authoritarian leadership, benevolent leadership, moral leadership