In the past five years, studies have demonstrated the intense challenges of COVID-19 on school leadership. In this study, we build upon the body of research and explore how principals re-imagined their leadership purpose, priorities, and practices from a human-centered care perspective. The study takes place in Florida, an epicenter of culture wars that politicized numerous economic, social, and scientific issues, including COVID-19, which adds nuance to the complexity in principals' leadership. The purpose of this study is to explore how principals reconceptualized their roles during the pandemic and how their practices and priorities aligned with humanism, using a humanistic values of care framework. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nine principals in South Florida, as well as corresponding school district documents. Our findings revealed that principals adopted health professional identities in response to a health and human safety crisis. They embraced human-centered mindsets and skills that prioritized the diverse challenges and trauma that students and staff were experiencing. Principals not only revamped communication channels but also strategically used these communications to heal, create meaning, and instill a sense of togetherness amid isolation, uncertainty, trauma, and grief. In practicing humanizing leadership, principals were transparent and vulnerable about their own physical, mental, and professional limitations. For a time, these leadership changes replaced traditional models of school leadership. However, we find tensions between humanistic leadership practices and the dehumanizing political and normalizing educational contexts, raising questions about the sustainability of humanistic leadership beyond life-and-death crisis contexts.