New research suggests that crisis due to climate change, infectious disease, cyber breaches, financial crashes or otherwise are no longer rare events. Leadership capabilities during the moments of crisis are important and tend to garner much of the attention of researchers, however, little attention has been given to leadership capabilities during the pre- and post-crisis stages. This literature review explores the use of character strengths from the field of positive psychology to help leaders increase their effectiveness of sensemaking pre-crisis and to address cycles of panic and neglect through organizational learning post-crisis (James & Wooten, 2022). By honing the specific strengths of courage and wisdom, and by building the skill of storytelling for knowledge transfer, leaders can strengthen their emotional management capabilities. Character strengths are often credited with being forged in the toughest moments and can be critical in how we cope and leverage optimistic thinking. The paper concludes with a brief application on how leaders can craft an interpersonal renewal narrative post-crisis that highlights meaning found through hardship, how character strengths enable a shift from suffering to strength, and how an optimistic view of possibilities can support leadership teams and organizations to flourish.