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The purpose of this study is to emphasize on women empowerment that leads to a new paradigm shift of Saudi woman into labor force. This study also outlines how Saudi Government has formulated several policies and reforms to empower women in the workplace, especially gender equality. Also, this study will discourse a clear idea on numerous measures initiated by Saudi Government on how to empower Saudi women in the labor force and what would be the impact of women empowerment and gender equality on Saudi economy.

The research methodology has undertaken the Saudi feminization approach that emphasizes solely on uplifting women empowerment within the context of social changes that are arising in Saudi Arabia. The data analyzed comes from the primary data statistics report that depicts 10 years of data from general authority for statistics (GaStat) for the period ranging from 2010–2016 (Q2) and 2016 –2020 along with global gender gap index (GGGI) for the period of 2006, 2017 and 2020. Additionally, data was considered from the latest articles, Saudi news, statistics revealed by “Pew Research Center,” international labor organization (ILO, 2020), which depicts the involvement of Saudi women at international level.

The data were analyzed from GaStat for the period ranging from 2010–2016 (Q2) and 2016–2020 along with GGGI for the period of 2006, 2017 and 2020 that has shown drastic changes in inspiring Saudi women empowerment pertaining to the labor market, the educational field, economic participation and gender equality. The most interesting point was that the total Saudi employed persons, especially males are double of females’ ratio. It depicts that until Q3 and Q4, 2018 females were still facing unemployment phase and their economic participation was less in comparison with male Saudis. However, there found to have a new paradigm shift; rising of Saudi women in various sectors in the year 2019 where unemployment decreased to 5.7%, labor force participation at 58.8%.

Saudi Arabia is stringing very hard to develop its economy over the next decade and beyond and have strong-minded to strengthen the contribution of women to development of society and economy. Currently, Saudi women have found ample job opportunities welcoming them in various sectors. Furthermore, they can work in numerous professions and fields that were formerly limited to men. According to Leyal Khalife (2019, July 1) and the statistics released by “Pew Research Center,” Saudi Arabia has experienced the highest growth rate – among G20 countries –of women joining the workforce in the past 20 years. The data revealed that women accounted for 23% of Saudi’s workforce in 2018 – a rise of 7% increase since 2018. Finally, today Saudi Arabia has shown the highest growth rate among G20 states, including Australia, Germany, Brazil and others.

The latest reforms emphasizes on minimizing the gender gap and inspire young girls to build a career path. This procedure specifies that Saudi female should formulate their tactics and approaches to encounter gender disparity and attain social fairness and equality not specific to education only but consider all the matters of life pertaining to context of male-dominating societies.

Most studies focusing on the transformational leadership style present the conclusion that compared with other leadership styles tends to be associated with a lower level of workplace stress experienced by employees. Yet, the literature is by no means extensive enough to put the issue of the relationship between this style of leadership and employee stress to rest. Given that this is the case, the purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between the transformational leadership style and the work stress (WS) of employees in the banking industry. The extent to which this relationship leads to employee burnout and the extent to which WS correlates with multiple factors, such as demographic characteristics (gender, work experience and marital status), are examined in this context.

In total, 600 questionnaires were distributed to employees of government and non-government banks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in late 2017. The final sample comprised 250 complete sets, which were used in the analysis. The questionnaire consisted of four sections: transformational dimensions, WS, burnout and demographic profile. Before the authors proceeded to test the hypotheses developed in this study, the authors performed an exploratory factor analysis on the items designed to measure transformational dimensions, WS and burnout. Next, the authors performed confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that bank managers who use the transformational leadership style significantly increased the job-related stress of employees, indicating that bank managers who use a transformational leadership style increase the job-related stress of subordinate employees. However, the results in regard to the transformational leadership style show a significant though small positive effect on employee burnout, indicating that this type of leadership decreases employee burnout. Furthermore, job-related stress has a significant mediating effect in relation to the transformational leadership style and subordinate employees’ burnout. Finally, the results indicate that married status and a high level of work experience are each associated with lower job stress compared with unmarried status and a low level of work experience.

This research paper contributes to the literature by investigating transformational leadership in the banking industry – an industry of fundamental economic importance in Saudi Arabia and globally. The research results, unlike those reported in most other studies to date, strongly suggest that the transformational leadership style can be associated with a high level of workplace stress, thereby pointing to new conclusions about this style and its effects on the health and well-being of the majority of employees. The results of this paper should be carried forward in this research direction, as doing so has the potential to challenge and even override what have become assumptions about the positive effects of the transformational leadership style. The insights derived from this research paper, therefore, should benefit academics and practitioners who can reference the outcomes in designing programs to support the recruitment, selection and development of effective leaders in the banking sector – especially given the broader ramifications both for overall firm performance and for the well-being of the majority of the country’s employees.