Authentic leadership and digital culture are essentials for successful digital transformation. So is governance, for leadership must use it to transform the workforce otherwise digital transformation will be inconclusive. But, while the mechanism by which leadership influences corporate culture has a growing interest, the relationship between authentic leadership, workforce governance, and digital culture remains unexplored. Moreover, workforce governance and digital culture are still emerging concepts that need clarification. Thus, based on a literature review and the theory of trust, this research proposes a conceptual model of workforce governance and its role in the authentic leadership-digital culture relationship. As SMEs in Côte d’Ivoire face digital transformation challenges, this model was analyzed in context. According to the results, workforce governance concept in a collectivist culture must integrate mutual aid and solidarity mechanisms in order to make ease digital culture building. For this, authentic leadership has to develop, besides dimensions identified in literature, a mutual aid and solidarity relationship with workforce.