The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of effective public health leadership, and collaboration on multiple levels. Public- and global health leaders took many different approaches to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We investigated lessons learned about essential public health leadership skills through literature review, and through six 60-minute interviews with public health leaders in Chicagoland area during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we developed a course syllabus to effectively teach public health leadership skills to future public health leaders.  The developed leadership syllabus consists of four segments, discussing essential leadership skills in times of pandemic, outbreak investigation, global health disparities, and a personal leadership skill development plan. Teaching methods include case studies, narratives, reflections, podcasts, and teamwork assignments. We chose these methodsbecause they will inspire students to further develop skills that will be necessary as a public health leader. Skills that should be taught to future public health leaders can be subdivided in five categories: social, emergency response, epidemiology, outbreak management, and technical skills. In particular, strong strategic thinking, teamwork, and communication skills are indispenable for a leader during a pandemic. Additional to essential skills, we identified certain personality traits that a public health leader should possess: such as flexibility, accountability, empathy, and having a clear vision.  A limitation of our research is that we have only been able to perform six qualitative interviews, while the rest of our research was based on literature review of articles published during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the qualitative interviews were performed with some of Chicagoland areas most influential leaders, for example Dr. Rachel Rubin and Dr. Kiran Joshi, Co-leads at the Cook County Department of Public Health.  Sharing these essential public health leadership skills identified during the COVID-19 pandemic, and teaching them to future public health professionals can improve future pandemic preparedness.