This paper reports the results of a research aimed at studying the relationship between the managerial approach and the personal and professional characteristics of teacher-directors at schools of the 117 non-certified municipalities of Antioquia (Colombia), taking into account the four dimensions of educational management (directive, administrative, academic, and communitarian) into three forms of management: func-tionalist, structuralist, and critical. The research followed a descriptive, quantitative, and inferential approach, and was carried out with 242 teacher-directors who were selected by stratified random sampling and surveyed through self-administered questionnaires. The results reveal that many of the practices of these directors in each of the dimensions of management are still functional and structural, although a turning point towards the so-called critical management is observed. Our findings reveal a statistically significant tendency of teaching directors with graduate studies and more than ten years of experience to place themselves in critical management. Similarly, those with less experience tend to a function-alist community managerial style and show a greater prevalence of critical management in this dimension over the years. © 2020, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. All rights reserved.