The aim of the study was to better understand the actions of principals in secondary education in facing some dilemmas after the implementation of the French policy of accountability. Contrary to other European countries, the policy is just at its beginning in the French education context even if some frameworks and indicators were designed to support decision-making and the evaluation of the education system. The French education system is searching for a Third Way between accountability and decentralization (Derouet, Normand, 2011; Cohen, D. K., & Spillane, J. P., 1994).

 At the difference of some of their European fellows, French principals view themselves as “administrators” or “representatives of the State” and they are very concerned to apply national legislation and ministry’s directives.  Under this bureaucratic top-down hierarchy, the idea of leadership encounters some limitations (Derouet, Normand, 2009, Leithwood, 2001). Even if this notion is implicitly present within official instructions that define principals as “pedagogical and educative pilots” of schools, these executives lack real legitimacy to act on teaching and learning which remain in the hands of State inspectors (MacBeath, 2006).

Compared to other countries, leadership is recognized not as an official function, but rather through an implicit and blurred sense of professionalism expressed sometimes by professionals as “personal charisma”, “sense of dialogue”, “proximity”. “Authority” and “responsibility” are the main social representations common to executives, allowing them to define their “missions” as public servants (Normand, 2014).

However the implementation of the European key-competencies framework and the consequences of the PISA survey impact on the daily work of principals in secondary schools (Normand, 2012): they have to work with teachers to find ways to improve student success.  For this, the legislation has created a “pedagogical board” to help principals bring teachers together regularly in order to talk and to make decisions regarding school improvement. Each principal has to design a school development plan to justify the use of resources and means, to fix targets related to national policy, and to be accountable on student achievement in national assessments and exams.  And the role of principals as leaders has been recognized according to OECD recommendations.

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