Introduction

The Master Plan for Primary Health Care in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, became the main guideline for the orientation of the health system in care networks. Leadership emerges within this context as a fundamental competence to carry out changes, considering its potential to guide the team work process. The aim of this work was to describe how nurse supervisors define and exercise leadership in primary health care.

Materials and Methods

Qualitative research with 16 nurses. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and data analysis was based on dialectic hermeneutics.

Results

The sense nuclei were analyzed in four categories: perception of nurses with relation to the concept of leadership and how they exercise it; the nurse’s leadership in managing primary health care; skills and competencies required to exercise leadership in primary health care; and challenges in the exercise of leadership in primary health care.

Discussion

The definitions on leadership were coherent with the way nurses exercise it in the daily work of the teams, with the behavioral theory being prevalent in the discourse. The autocratic and democratic leadership styles were identified with prevalence of the democratic. During the exercise of leadership, there is a need for a permanent search of behaviors, knowledge, and of the development of skills.

Conclusions

Nurses highlight leadership as: being in front of the team; leading a group of people; being an example; motivating and encouraging the team. In exercising leadership, it was found that they approached autocratic and democratic styles.

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