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‪This article focuses on the role of the school headmaster by considering it in a system structured around three themes: the institution, the educational team and the school’s partners (elected representatives, parents, etc.). We consider the system’s operation, and the interactions between those themes, in terms of tensions likely to generate professional issues specific to the position. Survey participants took and commented on commissioned “emblematic” photographs which portrayed this position. The analysis revealed two separate and typified ways of assuming the role of headmaster and tackling priorities. The headmasters’ length of service, perception of the latter, the importance of the context and of the interaction between the positions of headmaster and teacher all contributed to our results. The article concludes with the recognised complexity of the position, which calls for specific professionality without imposing how this is managed.‪