School management is directly related to school success. Effective leadership plus selection, recognition, training and responsibilities of managers and their professionalization focus nowadays the international scientific and political agendas. The analysis of the state of the art of leadership role in schools and their legislative development allows concluding how much the legal and theoretical-practical bases contributes to the professionalization of this function in Spain, and in one of this communities, Catalonia. Professionalization of the management function should prioritize, through collaborative and experiential dynamics, the learning of complex executive competences (institutional self-assessment, coordination - internal and external - between teachers, students, families and educational community, cooperation between educational institutions). Only then, inherent dimensions of the educational leadership (moral, relational and critical-innovative) will be met, surpassing political struggles and deprofessionalyzing debates occurred so far
School management is directly related to school success. Effective leadership plus selection, recognition, training and responsibilities of managers and their professionalization focus nowadays the international scientific and political agendas. The analysis of the state of the art of leadership role in schools and their legislative development allows concluding how much the legal and theoretical-practical bases contributes to the professionalization of this function in Spain, and in one of this communities, Catalonia. Professionalization of the management function should prioritize, through collaborative and experiential dynamics, the learning of complex executive competences (institutional self-assessment, coordination - internal and external - between teachers, students, families and educational community, cooperation between educational institutions). Only then, inherent dimensions of the educational leadership (moral, relational and critical-innovative) will be met, surpassing political struggles and deprofessionalyzing debates occurred so far