Brazilian educational politics propitiates the decentralization of education among different political- administrative instances. This decentralization is being accomplished through reforms in the educational system and at school level. The administrative, pedagogic and financial decentralization in public fundamental education and the concession of greater autonomy to schools lead to a discussion about the role of directors, who are nowadays the persons directly responsible for school administration. In this new scenery the present study intends to contribute to the comprehension of the characteristics of fundamental school directors and of predominant administrative styles in Brasil and specifically in Rio de Janeiro state. The research is based on information presented in Saeb 2001. In order to achieve this objective the research considered the main contributions of current national and international literature about the subject. The aim was to understand how the director and the teacher questionnaires in Saeb 2001 take into consideration this literature in order to identify the characteristics of fundamental school directors. Part of educational literature was used to examine important aspects of the information collected through the questionnaires, leading to important conclusions about administrative styles and the characteristics of fourth grade directors.