Employee service performance is an important source of a hospitality organization’s competitive advantage as it helps distinguish one hospitality organization over its competitors. In addition to being able to provide excellence in service, service employees in the hospitality industry are also expected to provide service recovery performance––resolving a service failure to satisfy a customer and meet customer expectations (Babakus et al., 2003; Guchait et al., 2014). Examples of service failures common in the hotel industry that require service recovery performance include unavailable rooms during check-in, providing the wrong bill, internet not working, unclean rooms, food not properly cooked, and services not available during stay (Lee et al., 2011a). Service recovery performance has been linked to multiple positive outcomes, including customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, positive word of mouth, and intent to purchase (Ha and Jang, 2009; Liao, 2007; Lin, 2010a). Because effective service recovery performance is crucial for the success of the hospitality businesses, past research has examined factors that can enhance service recovery performance (Boshoff and Allen, 2000; Masoud and Hmeidan, 2013). Although the service recovery performance literature has examined several organizational and individual antecedents (Kim and Oh, 2012; Lin, 2010b; Boshoff and Allen, 2000), research has failed to examine the link between leadership and service recovery performance. This is a particularly surprising gap in the service performance recovery literature because research has demonstrated that leadership style and behaviors are vital for overall employee performance (Babakus et al., 2003; Guchait et al., 2014). Specifically, research shows that transformational leadership positively influences employee performance in service contexts (Lee et al., 2011b; Liao and Chuang, 2007). Transformational leaders engage and motivate others to increase expectations and performance (Bass, 1985), which can include their service performance. Although transformational leadership has been linked to employee performance in service jobs and the service literature has also theorized and discussed the possible link between transformational leadership and service recovery performance (Lin, 2010b; Punjaisri et al., 2013), research has yet to examine this relationship. Since transformational leadership is a possible distal antecedent, the relationship between transformational leadership and service recovery performance has not been researched or examined. In fact, research shows that transformational leaders evoke emotion and appeal to others on an emotional level, thereby affecting employee performance through emotions (Dasborough, 2006; Dasborough and Ashkanasy, 2002). Thus, the current study addresses this gap in the service recovery performance literature by examining emotional labor as a potential mediator of the transformational leadership and service recovery performance relationship. Not only are hospitality employees required to perform their core job tasks, but hospitality employees must also manage their emotions by expressing positive emotions at work, especially while interacting with customers (Kim, 2008). Emotional behavior and effort of this kind, as well as the control of feelings in response to organizational demands, is recognized as emotional labor (Lam and Chen, 2012; Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1979). Thus, the current study focuses on transformational leadership as a distal antecedent of service recovery performance through emotional labor.