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South Africa’s additive manufacturing research has mostly concentrated on engineering and technical aspects, with a lack of studies on management and organizational dynamics. To fill this gap, we conducted research on the direct and moderating links between leader emotional intelligence, organizational emotional culture, and employee job performance in South African additive manufacturing enterprises. We used a deductive research approach, a quantitative research method, and a cross-sectional explanatory correlational study design. Our study used simple random sampling to select 148 employees of additive manufacturing firms in South Africa. Questionnaires served as the data collection instruments, and online data gathering was done using Google Forms. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 software was used for data coding, data entry, and descriptive statistics. Smart PLS 4 was used to conduct partial Least Squares (PLS) Structural Equation Modelling. Findings of the study demonstrate that a significant positive relationship exists between leader emotional intelligence and employee job performance. A significant positive relationship also exists between leader emotional intelligence and organizational emotional climate. A significant positive relationship was found to exist between organizational emotional culture and employee job performance. The finding also showed that organizational emotional culture moderates the relationship between leader emotional intelligence and employee job performance. The findings suggest that developing emotional intelligence among leaders in South African additive manufacturing enterprises could enhance both staff productivity and the organizational emotional environment. Our findings highlight the importance of prioritizing leader emotional intelligence training and development for additive manufacturing enterprises in creating a good emotional environment conducive to enhanced staff job performance.