Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transformational leadership (TL) on organizational commitment (OC) with the mediating role of organizational justice (OJ) in the higher education (HE) sector in Syria. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 502 employees from six HE institutions. Two measures of organizational outcomes were selected for this study, namely, job satisfaction (JS) and OC. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), the authors tested four alternative models to indicate the relationship between leadership and organizational outcomes. Findings TL has both direct and indirect effects on OC through interactional justice (IJ). TL has an impact on JS through procedural justice (PJ) and IJ as intermediate variables, while transactional leadership (TrL) has an impact on JS through distributive justice (DJ). The three types of OJ have an impact on OC through JS. The authors found that the national culture may not influence the impact of the leader in the current globalization context, as the results were similar to the Western studies. Practical implications The findings of the study provide managers of the HE sector with insights into the formations of employees’ fairness perceptions, and with some guidelines for managing employees by documenting OJ to draw positive attitudinal and behavioral responses from employees. Originality/value While most previous research has focused on exploring the relationship between leadership and OJ or between OJ and JS in the business sector, the study, however, seeks in addition, to pinpoint the effect of OJ as a mediate variable between the leadership and JS and OC in HE.