Concepts and practices of teaching and exercise of leadership in Nursing.

OBJECTIVE to identify, describe and analyze characteristics of leadership, head nurses and participants in the teaching-learning process of leadership in Nursing, according to nurse professors who performed studies on this theme and taught such content between 1972 and 1994 in nursing schools of the state of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil. METHODS Thematic Oral History was used. A total of four nurse professors were interviewed, whose reports were submitted to content analysis. RESULTS the following aspects were approached in this study: the context in which students developed leadership, the influence of previous experiences on leadership qualification, its attributes, the importance of leadership, the value of teaching it, the possibilities of emancipation of a head nurse, the repercussions of teaching leadership for one's professional life, the relationships between qualification and job market, the aspects of teaching qualification and students' characteristics. CONCLUSION although not essential for nursing qualification, leadership had a symbolic capital.