The global hospitality industry has been particularly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. An organization's ability to respond effectively to a crisis gives it a competitive edge, but poor leadership might jeopardise the company's existence (Clark et al., 2009). Dealing effectively and truthfully with the complexity and unpredictability of a crisis is a challenge for leaders. Many leaders, on the other hand, find it challenging to make quick and correct choices in crisis circumstances. There are limited studies that provide an understanding of leadership characteristics required to cope with an epidemic crisis in the hospitality industry. Therefore, in response this study addresses this gap in the literature by investigating the values and characteristics of leadership demonstrated by the New Zealand hospitality industry during the current Covid- 19 pandemic. This study adopts an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative approach to evaluate and examine secondary data from main hospitality associations in New Zealand. The research provides a holistic view of information related to the behaviors and leadership approaches those leaders taken in responding to the COVID-19 crisis in the hospitality industry. The findings reveal that New Zealand hospitality leaders adhere to core values of compassion and empathy in response to a crisis. Furthermore, the key leadership styles demonstrated were focused on dimensions of increasing collaboration and communication, creating a supportive culture, innovating solutions and recovery, and thinking ahead for long-term well-being. In addition, the researcher noted some new and emerging evidence in that New Zealand hospitality leaders provided focused leadership support through the distribution of authority to a network of expert teams. Not only does this study identify a variety of issues and challenges that hospitality leaders face, it presents a new model for sustainable leadership strategies for crisis situations that can be implemented by hospitality providers.