Background: Adaptive performance as the newest concept in the field of performance and as a ‎result of rapid changes in the world of work is of special interest.‎‏ ‏‎Accordingly, the purpose of ‎this research was to study the relationship between ethical leadership and adaptive performance ‎with considering the mediating role of   intrinsic   motivation.‎
Method: the study is a descriptive-correlation research. The study population includes all employees of a large organization affiliated to ‎Tehran Municipality with 832 employees, in the spring of 2017, among them, 270 were selected ‎through convenience sampling. Data accumulated by questionnaires and were analyzed using ‎Pearson correlation coefficient and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).‎
Results: Results show that there are positive significant relationship between ethical ‎leadership with intrinsic motivation and adaptive performance and also between intrinsic ‎motivation with adaptive performance (P‏>‏‎0/01). In addition, the functioning of the structural ‎equations showed significant relationship in a series of chain relations between ethical ‎leadership with intrinsic motivation (β=0.19, P<0.01) and intrinsic motivation with adaptive ‎‎(β=0.48, P<0.01).
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that adaptive performance could be increased ‎through ethical leadership and intrinsic motivation. ‎
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