Nurse leaders should be aware of what staff nurses'' expectations from them.  Staff nurses want their leaders to be honest, competent, forward looking and inspiring support as well as empowering them. The aim of the study was to explore leader empowering behavior and its impact on  staff nurses'' job-empowerment. The study was conducted in the cardiac, medical and surgical intensive care units at ZagazigUniversityHospital. The results revealed that nurse leaders empowering behavior significantly influenced nurses'' perception of job formal and informal power and access to empowerment structure (opportunity, information, support, and resources).  It is recommended that nurse leaders improve their behavior to be more empowering through educational sessions on problem-solving, decentralized decision-making, and effective communication.