Leadership effectiveness is viewed as a means of improving employee creativity, while less researches explain the mechanism between authentic leadership and employee creativity. From a Self-determination theory perspective, the paper develops a model explaining how authentic leadership affects employee creativity. Sampling 532 employees and 89 of their supervisors from two large-sized private enterprise groups, the paper tests the mediation and moderation of work passion and power distance in the relationship between authentic leadership and employee creativity by a mediated moderation model. The findings show that: 1) authentic leadership has significantly positive effects on both work passion and employee creativity; 2) work passion offers a total mediating effect between authentic leadership and employee creativity; 3) the higher the perception of power distance felt by employees, the stronger the positive effect of authentic leadership on work passion, and the more significant the subsequent fostering effect on employee creativity.