ABSTRACT Objective: to understand the meanings attributed by the Family Health Strategy (FHS) nurses to the management competencies essential to the performance of their actions. Method: explanatory, qualitative study, whose methodological framework was based on Grounded Theory. A total of 12 Family Health Strategy nurses from a municipality in southern Brazil participated through semi-structured interviews, between December 2018 and February 2019. Results: the experience was understood by the phenomenon “Lapidating management competencies daily to play the role of a nurse in the context of the Family Health Strategy”. As action/interaction strategies, the following categories emerged: “Evidencing the management skills of Family Health Strategy nurses” and “Recognizing the need for strategies to work on specificities in the context of the Family Health Strategy”. Final considerations: according to the meanings attributed by nurses, there are several essential management skills for the work in the Family Health Strategy, but they are still little worked and developed in this context, mainly because it is a complex health care scenario.