Introduction: Nurses play critical roles in disaster management and are required to demonstrate leadership by dealing with disaster events effectively. This study aimed to identify the nurse leadership indicators at each phase of disaster management. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted in two phases between November 2017 -January 2018 at two regional hospitals and one central hospital in Yogyakarta. The first phase involved semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven emergency nurses, and the second was a focus group discussions with five nurses’ managers or lecturers. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. Data Analyze used a modified version framework method. Results: We found 49 indicators of nurse leadership in disaster management. We grouped indicators into two major groups: common indicators (27 indicators) and specific indicators (22 indicators). Four themes were obtained according to the disaster management phases: nurse leadership in the mitigation phase, the preparedness phase, the response phase, and the recovery/rehabilitation phase. Each theme contains three main sub-themes (3Cs): character, competence, and the central role of the leader. Conclusion: Using the International Council of Nurses (ICN) framework’s disaster phase as a conceptual basis, 49 nurse leadership indicators were identified as potential information for future items candidates of the instrument for measuring nurse leadership in disaster management.