AIM: The aims of the study are to explore workplace violence perpetrated by patients or visitors from the perspective of hospital ward managers and to describe how ward managers perceive their leadership role and manage related incidents.

BACKGROUND: Few studies focus on workplace violence from the perspective of ward managers even though they are the closest managers to the operational staff.

METHOD: Fifteen semistructured interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Four categories emerged: the face of workplace violence, a two-fold assignment, strive towards readiness to act, and managing incidents.

CONCLUSION: While the most common acts of workplace violence are considered less serious and related to patients' medical conditions or dissatisfied visitors, hospital organizations focus on serious but rarely occurring incidents. Consequently, ward managers have limited opportunities to ensure a safe work environment on an everyday basis.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: To support ward managers' occupational safety and health management, workplace violence prevention and management should be acknowledged as an important responsibility for senior management in hospitals. It is important to identify incidents that most likely will occur at the wards and to create strategies related to those incidents. Strategies could include risk assessments, prevention, evaluation, education and reflection combined with, for example, scenario training.