Abstract: Organizational learning and strategic flexibility are important abilities of new ventures to obtain competitive advantages in the complex and ever-changing external environment，and entrepreneurial leadership，which has an important role in enhancing the performance of new ventures，is a key driver for new setups to maintain their competitive advantage and strategic values. This paper studies the multiple mediating effects of organizational learning ability and strategic flexibility between entrepreneurial leadership of CEOs and the performance new ventures based on strategic entrepreneurship and upper echelons theories. The empirical analysis of the sample data of 213 new venturesshows that entrepreneurial leadership of CEOs has a significant positive impact on both organizational learning ability and strategic flexibility of new ventures； the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and new ventures’ performance is completely mediated by organizational learning ability and strategic flexibility；and the difference between the mediating effects of organizational learning ability and strategic flexibility is not significant. The conclusions of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the influence mechanism of entrepreneurial leadership on the performance of new ventures.

Key words: entrepreneurial leadership, organizational learning ability, strategic flexibility, performance of new ventures