<![CDATA[This study aims to analyze the direct and indirect influence of leadership and organizational culture on employee performance by considering work discipline as an intermediate variable. This research will be conducted in 2025 at the Regional Office of the Ministry of Religion of North Sumatra Province. The study population included all civil servants totaling 185 people, with a sample of 65 employees determined using the Slovin formula and purposive sampling techniques. The data used was primary-quantitative, obtained through the distribution of questionnaires. This study applies an associative-quantitative approach with the SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Modeling - Partial Least Squares) analysis method and uses the SmartPLS 3 application for data processing. The results of the study revealed that leadership and organizational culture directly have a positive and significant effect on work discipline, so the H1 and H2 Hypotheses were accepted. However, directly, leadership and organizational culture do not have a significant influence on employee performance, causing the H3 and H4 Hypotheses to be rejected. On the contrary, work discipline has been shown to have a positive and significant influence on employee performance, so the H5 Hypothesis is accepted. Other findings show that organizational culture is the most contributing factor to the formation of work discipline, while work discipline is the main factor that affects employee performance. Furthermore, leadership and organizational culture indirectly, through work discipline, have a positive and significant impact on employee performance, so that the H6 and H7 Hypotheses can be accepted. Overall, leadership and organizational culture were able to explain 72.6% of work discipline variables, while the combination of leadership, organizational culture, and work discipline contributed 73.3% in shaping employee performance.]]>
