Resumen
Leaders play an important role in influencing the performance and productivity of employees in organizations. This paper is an attempt to decipher this relationship between the leadership styles and employee productivity with specific focus in private and foreign banks in India. Through a survey conducted on 413 employees of three private banks and 3 foreign banks (of US origin), the researcher found that transactional leadership played a significant role in predicting employee productivity in private banks, whereas in case of foreign banks, transformational leadership was a predictor of employee productivity. These findings can be interpreted on the basis of the direct impact of culture on moderating the relationship between leadership style and employee productivity. In a power distance culture as in India, leaders are expected to exercise power and influence without having to face any question or challenge from the subordinates. Therefore transactional style of leadership results in high productivity of employees. The US cultural context of foreign banks focuses on equal leader-employee relationship and the manager is expected to be a facilitator in the direction of achieving organizational goals and therefore transformational leadership is more dominant in foreign banks.