This research aims to highlight the conceptions of eight principals about their roles and actions within a democratic management perspective and a panorama that seeks quality in Early Childhood Education. These principals work in the Municipal Education System of Duque de Caxias, Baixada Fluminense. To this end, we intend to operate with the concepts of discretion, bureaucracy and these principals, here understood as bureaucrats who work in the implementation of public policies. The directors are understood as important agents in the relationship with the result and delivery of public policies to their addressees. For the construction of this study, we seek theoretical support in Bobbio (2018), Lück (2012), Paro (2007, 2012 and 2015) and Libâneo (2015) to think about school management and its democratic character in its administrative and pedagogical dimensions. We will use the studies of Lotta (2018), Pires (2016), Correia (2018) and Abrucio et al (2021) as a contribution to the debate on the role of the manager, his action in the implementation of public policies and its relationship with the quality of education. In the reflections on the specificities of Early Childhood Education, we will dialogue with the productions of Kramer (2005, 2011, 2019 and 2021), Guimarães (2011), Corsino (2012) and Monção (2021). As a methodological proposal, we will use a qualitative approach (LÜDKE; ANDRÉ, 2020, 1986, 2001), which aims to apprehend the multidimensional character of the phenomena in their natural manifestation. With regard to the instruments of data production, we will conduct semi-structured interviews and then intend to classify the data, triangulating them with the theoretical contribution in categories of analysis that allow us to draw the profile of the directors of the municipal day care centers of Duque de Caxias.