As well as the role of the professors is key in the learning processes, the one of the managers is equally imperative in creating institutional conditions to promote the effectiveness of the scholastic organization. This explicit recognition of the responsibility of the director (a) in leading (and not only administrating) the school and its Institutional Educative Project (PEI) in our context is rather recent, in particular the fact of tying its everyday work with the learning improvement through its influence in the educational practices. In this sense, in the Latin American investigation on school effectiveness has already been highlighted the importance of subjects such as the characteristics of the establishment direction, the collective construction of an institutional mission, establishing goals associated to high expectations and the generation of positive a school climate, being this last one according to SERCE (2008: 157) the factor associated to the scholastic performance with greater prediction power related to the students’ cognitive achievements.

Leadership, school improvement, management competences, professionalization.