This paper reflects on methodological issues in regard to case studies and my fieldwork inside three schools. The aim of the study is to describe and understand how leadership unfolds in everyday educational practice in school settings. I see leadership as a relational phenomenon. This implies that leadership is a phenomenon that unfolds and assumes a shape and a meaning in the school context where the leader is active. The focus in my research is the relation between the principal and the teachers. In order to understand leadership I study social processes in which the principals and the teachers are involved together when they develop their teaching approach and ways of working in the everyday educational practice in their schools. Research questions which are in focus are the following: How do the principal and the teachers do when they develop their educational practice in school? How do the principal and the teachers form their relations? Do the principal and the teachers have mutual understanding about their educational practice? If they have, how were these formed? A further question concerns how the principals view their own importance for the educational practice and how the teachers apprehend the leadership of the everyday educational practice in school.This research is a multiple case study with a mixed methodological approach containing interviews, observations, and document studies. I follow principals and teachers in three municipal compulsory schools in one school district in Sweden for a period of one year. The collected data consist of: field notes from meetings between principals and teachers in the schools, transcribed interviews with the principals and teachers about leadership and their everyday educational practice and documents of relevance for this practice.The study is a doctoral thesis. 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