The healthcare industry is managed, in Brazil, for health managers, in large part, who migrated from traditional medical assistance. These are people who at some point in their careers, accepted administrative responsibilities and assumed management positions in one of the most challenging and expensive production segments of the economy. The purpose of this research was to attempt to unravel the complexity of the challenge of being a health manager, from the experience of executives of private health care, acting positions in health insurance companies or hospitals. The research strategy chosen to address the problem of research - what consists on being a health manager? - was the phenomenological method. This method was deemed appropriate to allow the interviewee, based on their experience, to formulate their meaning by himself, without the guidance of a preestablished guidance. The textual description conformed, then a description of the essence of lived experience by interviewees, grouped in clusters of meaning: the changing roles of physician to health manager; the sense of omnipotence and tolerance to their own error; the tolerance to staff error and attention to detail; the view of managerial work, the qualification of ethics and scope of healthcare management. The interviews were based on only two questions: what is a health manager and what contexts or situations you consider typical for this experience? Little has been written in Brazil, about who makes decisions that impact the entire segment. In this context, this study contributes important insights about the occupations and preoccupations that take the agenda of health care managers.