Background: Recent ethical scandals have led to an increasing trend and interest in topics such as organizational ethics and accountability, and as a result, special attention has been paid to the issue of virtue in organizations. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the mediating role of organizational virtue as an ethical component in the relationship between authentic leadership and organizational forgetfulness. 
Method: The research method is descriptive-correlational, which is based on structural equation modeling. The statistical population included all employees of Mohaghegh Ardabili University in the academic year 1402-1403, and the sample size was 265 people selected by simple random selection using the Krejci and Morgan table. Standard organizational virtue, authentic leadership, and organizational forgetfulness questionnaires were used to collect data. Statistical techniques such as Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data using SPSS and AMOS-22 statistical software.
Results: The findings showed that the correlation between the variables of authentic leadership and organizational forgetfulness was -0.57, authentic leadership and organizational virtue was 0.71, organizational forgetfulness and organizational virtue was -0.76, and was significant at the P<0.01 level. Also, the findings related to the significance test of the indirect effect and the mediating role of organizational virtue showed that the mediation contribution of organizational virtue in the relationship between authentic leadership and organizational forgetfulness was significant (p=0.003). 
Conclusion: The presence of an authentic leader in a university, with his ethical orientations and guidelines, and by sharing power in the organization and transparency of the relationship, can lead to positive organizational results by establishing organizational virtue among the organization's employees and reduce the level of purposeful organizational forgetfulness among employees.