The objective of this study was to reflect on the leadership, especially in the intensive care nursing, based on the prospect of nurses, teachers, nursing students and in the literature on the subject. The leadership of the nurse in intensive care units faces challenges and paradoxes and is present in the planning of care, in the moments of ethical and bioethical conflicts, in the supervision of care, in capacity of making decisions quickly and safety, in knowing deal with the issues involving the process of living and dying.
Nursing; Leadership; Intensive care units