The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of local cultural wisdom and leadership management on work motivation and their impacts on employee performance at the Malahayati Shipping and Education Training Center (Balai Pendidikan dan Pelatihan Ilmu Pelayaran - BP2IP), Aceh province, Indonesia. All 148 instructors of the center were selected as the sample of the study, thus using the census technique. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the study found that local cultural wisdom has a significant and positive effect on work motivation, while leadership management has an insignificant effect on work motivation. Additionally, both local cultural wisdom and leadership management have a significant positive effect on instructors' performance, respectively. Finally, the work motivation was found to have a mediating effect on the influence of local cultural wisdom and leadership management on instructors’ performance. Thus, if employee performance is the main focus to be improved, it should be done through improving employee motivation on the basis of fully utilizing the local cultural wisdom such as cooperative work (gotong royong), the accomplishment of assigned official tasks as part of Islamic religious duties (ibadat), and obedience to the leadership.