Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 9, No 2, 2021, pp 185-194 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2021.9219 185|https://giapjournals.com/hssr/index © Ali et al. THE EFFECT OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE: A MODERATING ROLE OF ISLAMIC WORK ETHICS Amjad Ali 1* , Shahzad Mushtaq 2 , Muhammad Asif 3 , Muhammad Qasim Maqbool 4 , Umer Bin Khalid 5 1*,4 Department of Management Science, University of Okara, Pakistan; 2,3 Department of Economics, University of Okara, Pakistan; 5 Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Ondokuz Mayis University, Turkey. Email: 1* amjad_jamy81@yahoo.com, 2 mianb19@yahoo.com, 3 asifjilinuni88@gmail.com, 4 qasimmaqbool007@gmial.com, 5 umer2057@gmail.com Article History: Received on 13 th February 2021, Revised on 21 st March 2021, Published on 24 th March 2021 Abstract Purpose: This study aims to explore the impact of authentic leadership on employee performance and the moderating role of Islamic work ethics. There is little research on authentic leadership and employee performance in Pakistan's higher education sector. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of authentic leadership with Islamic work ethics on employee performance. Methodology: This is a quantitative study. In this study, the convenience sampling method was used as a sampling technique. The data was collected from the higher education sector in Peshawar, and a questionnaire was circulated to 220 employees working in the various higher education sector in Peshawar. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 22 version. Results: The results show that authentic leadership has a significant impact on employee performance. Authentic leadership also significantly influences IWE. Similarly, the interactive impact of authentic leadership and Islamic work ethics on employee performance was also found to be significant. Applications of this study: This research can be very effective for improving authentic leadership strategies to improve the performance of employees in the higher education sector in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Novelty of the study: The contribution of this research is Islamic work ethics using the first time between authentic leadership and employee performance, which has not been used so far. It has been found that Islamic work ethics positively moderate the link between authentic leadership and employee performance. Keywords: Authentic Leadership, Islamic Work Ethics, Employee Performance. INTRODUCTION An increasingly competitive and dynamic environment requires people to go beyond appropriate employment responsibilities and take active steps to pay their organizations. With the proliferation and decentralization of self- management teams, employee initiative is becoming more and more important to organizational success (Parker and Collins, 2010 ). According to Morrison (2001) , leadership is a key part of a worker's motivation for active behavior. While some researchers have studied the association between exact leader behavior (for example, transformative leadership, empowered leadership) and active behavior (Den Hartog and Belschak 2012 ; Thomas et al. 2013 ). However, experimental research is still insufficient, mostly for developing leadership styles (such as authentic leadership). Leadership is very difficult during challenging times, but the only source of stress facing organizations around the world today needs to refocus on true leadership. Leadership scholars believe that authentic leadership has conventional substantive care (Jensen et al., 2006 ; Walumbwa et al., 2008 ), who claim that it is very beneficial to the organization and leads to desirable outcomes. Authentic leadership strategies show that leaders establish legitimacy in terms of ethical foundation, respect, and honest relations with their followers (Walumbwa et al., 2008 ). In general, authentic leadership brings openness and boosts hope between leaders and assistants, which is essential for novelty and creativity. While its impact on innovation seems to be feasible, in earlier studies, and especially in the higher education literature, authentic leadership is usually considered slightly. This is also one of the basic requirements for administrative and staff development. Similarly, the authenticity of leaders has caught global attention in the past few years (Walumbwa et al., 2010 ). Authentic leadership is well-defined as a model of leadership behavior, which uses and supports optimistic mental abilities and a positive moral atmosphere to cultivate advanced self-awareness, inner goodness, and balance of information processing and clarity of dealings (Walumbwa et al., 2008 ). Authentic leadership is a key topic of leadership research (Gardner et al. 2005 ), considering that it can explain the influence of leaders on human interaction in the organizational environment. The main characteristics of true leaders are that they have an optimistic inner state, including self-assurance, self-confidence, courage, and flexibility, and can also stimulate the expansion of these qualities of others. After real leadership emerged, investigators examined its impact on employee work consequences, such as Islamic work ethics and employee performance (Hsiung, 2012 ). Given that positive behaviors may change the status quo, bosses are not always welcoming them, and employees may stabilize benefits and fees before they become attractive to them (Parker and Collins, 2010 ). Working in organizations with true leaders, they are more likely to be