Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the mediating role of organisational citizenship behaviour between transformational leadership and successful implementation of education 4.0 in higher educational institutes using the PLS-SEM approach. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses cross-sectional and quantitative approach to decode the relationship amongst the variables. Purposive non-probability sampling technique was used to select the sample size for the study. Findings: The research findings reveal that transformational leadership has a significant and positive effect on education 4.0. Further, it also indicates that the organisational citizenship behaviour in the study served as a mediating variable between transformational leadership and education 4.0, explaining 40% of the effect of transformational leadership on education 4.0. This highlights the importance of transformational leaders in creating a conducive environment that encourages employees to exhibit organisational citizenship behaviour, thereby facilitating the successful adoption and integration of education 4.0. Originality/value: The authors recognise a research gap in the existing literature that focusses on the direct effects of transformational leadership on education 4.0 in higher educational institutes of management. Also, there is a lack of inclusive studies that explore the mediating mechanisms through which transformational leadership affects education 4.0, predominantly the role of organisational citizenship behaviour. Thus, this study is first in itself to explore the inter relationship between transformational leadership, organisational citizenship behaviour and education 4.0.