Understanding how institutional leadership influences research productivity is crucial for advancing higher education policy and practice, yet empirical evidence remains limited in non-Western contexts. Drawing on upper echelons theory and a longitudinal dataset spanning 20 years (2000-2019) of 392 presidential appointments across Chinese universities, this study examines how presidential capabilities affect institutional research performance. Our findings demonstrate that presidential capabilities--measured through educational background, international experience, and academic achievements--significantly enhance research output, with effects varying across institutional contexts. The impact is most pronounced in second-tier research universities and shows stronger effects in economically developed regions and centrally administered institutions. These results contribute to understanding leadership effectiveness in higher education by highlighting how institutional contexts moderate presidential influence, offering valuable insights for leadership selection and development in higher education institutions.