This study aimed to ascertain the perceptions of nurses facing the use of managerial leadership as a tool in their work process. This was a qualitative study of type descriptive and exploratory, conducted with eleven nurses from a large hospital in the southern region of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, during the months of February and March 2008. For data collection were used semi-structured interviews and focus group. The content analysis was chosen as a technique for processing the data, resulting in two categories: meanings attributed to the leadership and authority versus authoritarianism. It was noticed that even the leadership offering advantages in nursing work, are still great the difficulties to understand it and, especially, to put it into practice, making it necessary to create programs and strategies to improve the performance of the leadership as an instrument's managerial of nurses.
Leadership; Personnel administration, hospital; Nursing staff, hospital; Health services