In today's competitive environment, universities need to strengthen their innovative performance to maintain dynamism and effectively respond to environmental changes. Entrepreneurial leadership has emerged as a key approach to achieving this objective. The main purpose of this study was to explain the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership of higher education managers and innovative performance through the mediating role of organizational agility. This research was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of methodology, using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The statistical population consisted of 949 managers from the University of Tehran, Tarbiat Modares University, and Allameh Tabataba'i University during the 2025–2026 academic year. Based on Cochran's formula, a sample size of 274 participants was determined. Data were collected using standardized questionnaires and analyzed through SPSS and AMOS software. The findings indicated that entrepreneurial leadership had a positive and significant effect on both innovative performance and organizational agility. Furthermore, organizational agility had a direct and significant positive effect on innovative performance. The mediation analysis also confirmed that organizational agility significantly mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and innovative performance. Therefore, it can be concluded that university managers can effectively enhance universities' innovative performance by adopting an entrepreneurial leadership style and fostering organizational agility, thereby facilitating sustainable development and institutional transformation