The action and the managerial work are social practices; they should be seen as an interrelation between organizational and behavioral in the society context, and the context of society in which that organization and its managers are inserted. On the basis and with the objective of characterize and analyze the managerial practices of professors with intermediate leadership in their routine action, was carried out a study in the Universidade Federal. The research was developed utilizing qualitative strategy. The facts reveal that the managerial activities in the university are diluted and incorporated in social practices, carried out without planning, commanding the immediate and improvise. Some peculiarities from management university, like charge collegiate, bureaucracy, political factors, power struggle, absence of administrative skills, administration of the pairs, the transitory character of the position and the public university culture, they increase the contradictory character and the inherent conflict to managerial function.
university; middle manager; social practice; culture
