Objective To understand the meanings that nursing staff gives to nurse's managerial practice in the inpatient unit. Methods This is an exploratory and descriptive research with qualitative approach, conducted in a general hospital in a Southern city of Minas Gerais State. We used the Theory of Social Representations as theoretical framework. The study sample were composed by 23 nursing technicians and five nursing assistants. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interviews, from December 2011 to January 2012. For data analysis we used the discourse analysis, according to social psychology framework. Results The meanings attributed to management occurred from the closeness/distance to staff and to patients` care actions. Conclusions The managerial nurse, perceived as a process apart from care, is classified as non familiar practice, of hard understanding and valuation.