This study is about the influence of ethical leadership in both employees wellbeing and employee performance in Egypt’s tourism industry. Besides, it examines the indirect effect of ethical leadership on performance through its influence on the well-being of employees. The research was based on a quantitative research method and the surveys were self-administered, distributed and collected from a random sample of the employees of the Tourism companies. Analysis of 515 valid responses using structural equation modeling (SEM) unveiled several key findings: Ethical leadership is the main reason why both employee well-being and performance are significantly increased, and the fact that employee well-being is also the main reason for the improvement of performance. In addition, the employee well-being plays the role of the bridge between the ethical leadership and the performance. These insights are of great help for the decision-makers in the crafting of the effective leadership strategies that will lead to the creation of the thriving and high-performed work environments in Egyptian tourism sector.

Abdullah, M. I., Huang, D., Sarfraz, M., et al. (2020). Effects of internal service quality on nurses’ job satisfaction, commitment and performance: Mediating role of employee well-being. Nursing Open, 8(2), 607–619. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.665

Ahmad, M. A. (2019). The effect of ethical leadership on management accountants’ performance: The mediating role of psychological well-being. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(2), 228. https://doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(2).2019.17

AlShehhi, H., Alshurideh, M., Kurdi, B. A., & Salloum, S. A. (2020). The impact of ethical leadership on employees performance: A systematic review. In: Proceedings of the International conference on advanced intelligent systems and informatics; Cham: Springer International Publishing. pp. 417–426.

Athota, V. S., Budhwar, P., & Malik, A. (2019). Influence of Personality Traits and Moral Values on Employee Well-Being, Resilience and Performance: A Cross-National Study. Applied Psychology, 69(3), 653–685. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12198

Ayad, T. (2017). Examining the relationships between visit experience, satisfaction and behavioral intentions among tourists at the Egyptian Museum. Journal of Association of Arab Universities for Tourism and Hospitality, 14(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.21608/jaauth.2017.48147

Boehnlein, P., & Baum, M. (2020). Does job crafting always lead to employee well-being and performance? Meta-analytical evidence on the moderating role of societal culture. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 33(4), 647–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2020.1737177

Bryman, A., & Cramer, D. (2012). Quantitative Data Analysis with IBM SPSS 17, 18 & 19. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203180990

Chin, W.W. (1998). The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling. In: Marcoulides, G. A. (editor). Modern methods for business research. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. pp. 295–336.

Chin, W.W. (2010) How to Write Up and Report PLS Analyses. In: Handbook of Partial Least Squares: Concepts, Methods and Applications. Springer. pp. 655–690. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-32827-8_29

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, USA.

Dey, M., Bhattacharjee, S., Mahmood, M., et al. (2022). Ethical leadership for better sustainable performance: Role of employee values, behavior and ethical climate. Journal of Cleaner Production, 337, 130527. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.130527

Dsouza, M. P., Shetty, A., Dinesh, T. K., et al. (2023). Stimulating employee performance and well-being: a review of mindfulness impact in the hospitality sector. IIMBG Journal of Sustainable Business and Innovation, 1(1), 4–17. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijsbi-06-2023-0037

Ejaz, T., Anjum, Z. U. Z., Rasheed, M., et al. (2022). Impact of ethical leadership on employee well-being: the mediating role of job satisfaction and employee voice. Middle East Journal of Management, 9(3), 310. https://doi.org/10.1504/mejm.2022.122577

Eluwole, K. K., Karatepe, O. M., & Avci, T. (2022). Ethical leadership, trust in organization and their impacts on critical hotel employee outcomes. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 102, 103153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103153

Faizul, M. (2023). The impact of ethical leadership on employee well-being with moderating role of role of leadership mindfulness. Dinkum Journal of Economics and Managerial Innovations, 2(05), 281–292.

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104

Fu, J., Long, Y., He, Q., et al. (2020). Can Ethical Leadership Improve Employees’ Well-Being at Work? Another Side of Ethical Leadership Based on Organizational Citizenship Anxiety. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01478

Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M. (2017) A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.

Haricharan, S. (2023). Leadership, management and organizational implications for public service employee well-being and performance. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 21. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v21i0.2080

Ho, H., & Kuvaas, B. (2019). Human resource management systems, employee well-being, and firm performance from the mutual gains and critical perspectives: The well-being paradox. Human Resource Management, 59(3), 235–253.https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21990

Hoang, G., Yang, M., & Luu, T. T. (2023). Ethical leadership in tourism and hospitality management: A systematic literature review and research agenda. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 114, 103563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103563

Ilyas, S., Abid, G., & Ashfaq, F. (2022). Enhancing the perceived organizational support, perceived ethical-philanthropic CSR and subjective well-being: the role of ethical leadership. International Journal of Ethics and Systems, 39(4), 713–736. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-04-2022-0084

Janssen, O., & Van Yperen, N. W. (2004). Employees’ Goal Orientations, the Quality of Leader-member Exchange, and the Outcomes of Job Performance and Job Satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 368–384. https://doi.org/10.2307/20159587

Johnson, A., Dey, S., Nguyen, H., et al. (2020). A review and agenda for examining how technology-driven changes at work will impact workplace mental health and employee well-being. Australian Journal of Management, 45(3), 402–424. https://doi.org/10.1177/0312896220922292

Kalshoven, K., Den Hartog, D. N., & De Hoogh, A. H. B. (2011). Ethical leadership at work questionnaire (ELW): Development and validation of a multidimensional measure. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(1), 51–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.007

Kock, N. (2020). Multilevel analyses in PLS-SEM: An anchor-factorial with variation diffusion approach. Data Analysis Perspectives Journal, 1(2), 1–6.

Kultalahti, S., Viitala, R., Hujala, M., et al. (2023). Employee well-being: the role of perceived competence. Journal of Workplace Learning, 35(7), 648–661. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl-06-2023-0095

Kurnia, C., &Widigdo, A. M. N. (2021). Effect of Work-Life Balance, Job Demand, Job Insecurity on Employee Performance at PT Jaya Lautan Global with Employee Well-Being as a Mediation Variable. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 6(5), 147–152. https://doi.org/10.24018/ejbmr.2021.6.5.948

Marisya, F., Mayasari, V., Astuti, S. D., et al. (2023). Implementation of Leadership Ethics and Transformational Leadership in Employee Performance. Asian Journal of Applied Business and Management, 2(4), 545–556. https://doi.org/10.55927/ajabm.v2i4.6714

Ramdhan, R. M., Kisahwan, D., Winarno, A., et al. (2022). Internal Corporate Social Responsibility as a Micro foundation of Employee Well-Being and Job Performance. Sustainability, 14(15), 9065. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14159065

Rasool, S. F., Wang, M., Tang, M., et al. (2021). How Toxic Workplace Environment Effects the Employee Engagement: The Mediating Role of Organizational Support and Employee Wellbeing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18, 2294. https://doi.org/10.3390/ ijerph18052294

Salas-Vallina, A., Alegre, J., & López-Cabrales, Á. (2020). The challenge of increasing employees’ well-being and performance: How human resource management practices and engaging leadership work together toward reaching this goal. Human Resource Management, 60(3), 333–347. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22021

Sarwar, H., Ishaq, M. I., Amin, A., et al. (2020). Ethical leadership, work engagement, employees’ well-being, and performance: a cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28(12), 2008–2026. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2020.1788039

Tamer, G. (2021). The Role of Ethical Leadership in Increasing Employees’ Organizational Commitmentand Performance: The Caseof Healthcare Professionals. Journal of Life Economics, 8(1), 133–146. https://doi.org/10.15637/jlecon.8.1.13

Thakur, D. J., Verma, P., & Sharma, D. (2020). Demographic analysis of Ethical Leadership Style and Employee Performance. Journal of Xi’an University of Architecture & Technology. 5645–5651.

Ullah, I., Mirza, B., & Jamil, A. (2021). The influence of ethical leadership on innovative performance: modeling the mediating role of intellectual capital. Journal of Management Development, 40(4), 273–292. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd-08-2020-0277

Veal, A. J. (2006) Research Methods for Leisure and Tourism. Prentice Hall, London.

Wetzels, M., Odekerken-Schröder, G., van Oppen, C. (2009). Using PLS Path Modeling for Assessing Hierarchical Construct Models: Guidelines and Empirical Illustration. MIS Quarterly, 33(1), 177. https://doi.org/10.2307/20650284

Yan, R., Basheer, M. F., Irfan, M., & Rana, T. N. (2020). Role of psychological factors in employee well-being and employee performance: An empirical evidence from Pakistan. Revista Argentina de ClínicaPsicológica, 29(5), 638.

Yousaf, K., Abid, G., Butt, T. H., et al. (2019). Impact of ethical leadership and thriving at work on psychological well-being of employees: Mediating role of voice behavior. Business, Management and Education, 17(2), 194–217. https://doi.org/10.3846/bme.2019.11176