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The difficulties that have persisted for several years in hospitals require the relevant parties to innovate when it comes to their organizational and managerial practices. Management innovations, however, can be hampered by the complexity of health organizations and the wide variety of stakeholders involved in them. While the proximity manager is recognized in the literature as a key player in their success, the aim of this article is to clarify the influence of this profession on the mechanism of knowledge diffusion. Based on a six-month immersion research-intervention conducted in a Luxembourg hospital, we follow the deployment of a managerial innovation: lean healthcare. Our investigations reveal the impact of the manager on the transfer of knowledge during the successive stages of managerial innovation, and the requisite skills, such as leadership and the ability to communicate.