Employee performance is one of the most important variables for organizational survive and thrive. Majority of previous studies investigated the employee performance in business organization. However, few have investigated it in universities. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework of performance of academic staff. A literature review was conducted as well as a preliminary interview with the some academic staff. Building on the literature, this study proposed that transformational leadership and its dimension (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation) as well as the organizational commitment and its dimension (affective commitment, continuous commitment, and normative commitment) have positive effects on the performance of academic staff. The study proposes also a mediating role of organizational commitment between transformational leadership and performance of academic staff. The conceptual framework was discussed and direction for future work was highlighted.