This study reports the development process lived by a young woman as teacher, mentor and school leader facing a set of problems and challenges in the Portuguese context of school leadership. This research debates her experiences and concerns emerging from her different but articulated roles, responsibilities and relationships that are building up her personal and professional identity. The concept of leadership is here worked from her perspectives and reflexivity derived from the daily choices she had to take along a school year. A multi-dimensional theoretical background inspired by Gunter's work (2005) for understanding headteachers' experiences was followed to analyse the narratives and extensive notes recorded. Five dimensions (technical; illuminative; critical; practical and positional) oriented the research questions posited: i) what is told about work, life and career; ii) what is the meaning of the accounts?; iii) what is the interplay between her agency and the structures that enable or prevent her actions?; iv) how do her experiences generate understanding of improvement?; and v) how can her pathway be engaged with further development? The studies on gender and leadership provided another theoretical basis for gaining consistency in this study (Blackmore, 1999). This young woman, a Deputy Head, sees herself as an enthusiastic, caring teacher and colleague but, moreover, she understands her role as a school leader, hierarchically at second level, very suitable to her as she is not aspiring, for the moment, to the top position, though she has a very positive self image. She recognises that her short, three year experience, hardly gave her the status or the knowledge to assume the whole responsibility. She is aware of the context of the school, situated in a poor, multicultural area of the city, with high rates of drop out students but, whom she believes, she has to "conquer" in a permanent process that “can go wrong anytime”.

This case is part of an ethnographic study which took place in a selected school setting, for a whole year. Observations, formal interviews both of the young female school leader as well as other previledged informants (teachers and the school Head) and informal inquiry of students were undertaken. The nature of this research is phenomenological, aiming at understanding the meanings constructed around daily events and actions.

This female leader’s identity has evolved. She is learning from experience (“Now, I can say NO!”). She is adapting her own leadership style to the complexities of the school. Her aspirations to become the Head of a school are postponed to later in her career as now, she is only focused in the need for learning from every role and task in the school that she is able to fulfil. She realises that “I am not the brain but part of a team – the President is the leader, I adjust and do my part in the project”.