Aim: Increase understanding of nursing leadership in group clinical supervision (CS).
Background: Leadership in CS has received little interest besides the theories in use and administrative CS.
Method: Hermeneutic interpretation of written narratives of 24 clinical nurse supervisors.
Results: Continuity in structuring, story and mission and reflection in group and leadership processes and theories of nursing and caring characterize leadership in CS. Leadership by inhibiting and creating fear, inapproachability and indistinctiveness were patterns in content brought to CS. Supervision when leadership was involved illuminated a reflexive change in focus from leadership to nursing care, from particular experiences to nursing and caring science, and from the unfamiliar to the well known and the well known to the unknown.
Conclusions: Continuity and reflective changes using nursing and caring theories seem to be core ideas of nursing leadership from the perspective of CS. The poles of separation and communion show opposites of nursing leadership as it is illuminated in CS. The findings add knowledge to Bondas' theory of caritative leadership.
Implications for nursing management: CS is a reflexive practice of support and guidance that seems to have an impact on the trajectory of nursing care and staff development using nursing and caring theories.