Background Applying the principles and skills of management, including planning, organising and leadership skills, will greatly help to improve the quality of nursing manager duties. This is even more important during crisis management, such as the COVID-19 crisis. The objective of the present study was to express the experiences of nursing managers in the COVID-19 crisis.

Methods A qualitative conventional content analysis approach was used to discover the nursing leadership style in the COVID-19 crisis. The present study was conducted in one hospital in Tehran, Iran. 20 Iranian nursing managers in all nursing management positions such as head nurse, matron and supervisor were interviewed. Semi-structured interview was conducted at one hospital in Iran, using reflective and open-ended questions. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. The study was carried out in 2020 while data saturation occurred, no new categories or codes have emerged and the study questions were answered. Credibility and conformability were established through member checking. The report of the analysis was returned to the participants in order to get the assurance that the researchers had portrayed their real world in codes and extracted categories.

Results Four main themes emerged from data analysis including ‘managers as role model’, ‘full responsiveness’, ‘being in constant challenge’ and ‘post disaster growth’.

Conclusion Nursing management is one of the activities that the manager must be constantly aware of the activities of his subset. This requires a constant presence in the workplace and communication with nursing staff. Also, in times of crisis, the manager, in addition to having scientific ability, must also have sufficient experience. These two factors will lead to crisis management. Also, training staff and managers in crisis management is one of the most important issues in nursing management.