Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of organisational integrity and leadership behaviour on organisational excellence by considering the mediating role of work engagement in the banking sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative (questionnaire survey) design was used to gather data from 285 employees of the banking sector in Southern and Central Iraq.
Findings
The findings revealed a partial mediation role of work engagement in the relation between organisational integrity and organisational excellence and a full mediation role between leadership behaviour and organisational excellence.
Research limitations/implications
Managers need to understand that the impact of their leadership behaviour on organisational outcomes; they also have to understand how people think and what motivates them positively. Therefore, managers must deal with employees as internal customers and realise that their satisfaction and performance is the satisfaction of external customers.
Originality/value
Few studies have dealt with this topic in the in developing countries such as Iraq. The increases the strength of competition in the Iraqi banking sector pays more attention to the search for excellence. Therefore, more research efforts are needed for achieving organisational excellence in this sector.
