The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the leadership of head nurses on the job satisfaction and job performance of staff nurses. The leadership styles of head nurses were classified to "authority-oriented" and "benevolence-oriented" based on korean traditional culture. The subjects of this study were 450 staff nurses working at medical-surgical units, intensive care units, emergency units of general hospitals in Kyungbuk area. Data were collected from March 13 to March 25 with several scales for the measurement of leadership styles of head nurses, job satisfaction and job performance of staff nurses. The Cronchbach alphas for the scales were. 79 in "authority-oriented" leadership style, 90 in "benevolence-oriented" leadership style, .91 in job satisfaction, .97 in job performance. Data were analyzed with SAS program using statistics of percentage, means, standard deviation, Pearson correlation, ANOVA and ANCOVA. The results were : 1. There were significant correlations between benevolence-oriented leadership style and job satisfaction, job performance of staff nurses(r=.24, p=.000 ; r=.12, p=.008), authority-oriented leadership style of head nurses and job satisfaction of staff nurses(r=.12 ; p=.024). 2. There were significant differences in job satisfaction of staff nurses by age and clinical career(F=10.36, p=.000 ; F=7.63, p=.000). Also there were significant differences in job performance of staff nurses by age, religion, marriage and clinical career(F=17.79, p=.000 ; F=2.89, p=.035 ; F=4.41, p=.036 ; F=14.33, p=.000). 3. There was significant differences in job satisfaction by the leadership style of head nurses. The job satisfaction of staff nurses with benevolence-oriented head nurses was higher than those with authority