diff --git a/cmd/kubectl/kubectl.go b/cmd/kubectl/kubectl.go
index 09c18cfa209..4351585e684 100644
--- a/cmd/kubectl/kubectl.go
+++ b/cmd/kubectl/kubectl.go
@@ -17,7 +17,10 @@ limitations under the License.
 package main
 
 import (
+	"os"
+
 	"k8s.io/component-base/cli"
+	"k8s.io/component-base/logs"
 	"k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd"
 	"k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/util"
 
@@ -26,6 +29,13 @@ import (
 )
 
 func main() {
+	// We need to manually parse the arguments looking for verbosity flag and
+	// set appropriate level here, because in the normal flow the flag parsing,
+	// including the logging verbosity, happens inside cli.RunNoErrOutput.
+	// Doing it here ensures we can continue using klog during kubectl command
+	// construction, which includes handling plugins and parsing .kuberc file,
+	// for example.
+	logs.GlogSetter(cmd.GetLogVerbosity(os.Args)) // nolint:errcheck
 	command := cmd.NewDefaultKubectlCommand()
 	if err := cli.RunNoErrOutput(command); err != nil {
 		// Pretty-print the error and exit with an error.
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/cmd.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/cmd.go
index ed3772c5adf..ccf85a55c9a 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/cmd.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/kubectl/pkg/cmd/cmd.go
@@ -583,3 +583,29 @@ func registerCompletionFuncForGlobalFlags(cmd *cobra.Command, f cmdutil.Factory)
 			return utilcomp.ListUsersInConfig(toComplete), cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
 		}))
 }
+
+// GetLogVerbosity parses the provided command-line arguments to determine
+// the verbosity level for logging. Returns string representing the verbosity
+// level, or 0 if no verbosity flag is specified.
+func GetLogVerbosity(args []string) string {
+	for i, arg := range args {
+		if arg == "--" {
+			// flags after "--" does not represent any flag of
+			// the command. We should short cut the iteration in here.
+			break
+		}
+
+		if arg == "--v" || arg == "-v" {
+			if i+1 < len(args) {
+				return args[i+1]
+			}
+		} else if strings.Contains(arg, "--v=") || strings.Contains(arg, "-v=") {
+			parg := strings.Split(arg, "=")
+			if len(parg) > 1 && parg[1] != "" {
+				return parg[1]
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
+	return "0"
+}