Corporate leverage manipulation may increase the risk of debt default in the future, thus increasing the systemic risk. The main motivation for enterprises to conduct leverage manipulation is to seek financial loans. Previous studies have shown that the managerial ability affects the operation status and future development of enterprises, as well as the financing of enterprises. This paper empirically tests the influence of managerial competence on corporate leverage manipulation. The results show that the improvement of managerial ability can significantly reduce the leverage manipulation behavior of enterprises, and the influence path is mainly to alleviate the financing problem of enterprises. After considering the robustness test, the conclusion still holds. The influence of managerial ability on leverage manipulation depends on the characteristics of debt structure, debt default risk and internal control quality, and the influence is greater in the sample of enterprises with debt structure more dependent on bank loans, debt default risk and high internal control quality. In addition, the degree to which the improvement of managerial ability reduces the leverage manipulation of enterprises can be seen in the samples where the management power is not too large, government subsidies and the degree of urban marketization are higher. This study confirms the positive externality economic effect of managerial competence from the perspective of corporate leverage manipulation, which provides some enlightenment for promoting the cultivation of managerial competence and reducing leverage manipulation behavior.