Methodologically speaking, educational leadership and management research has been largely underpinned by standardized surveys when carrying out quantitative research and interviews for qualitative research. Beyond these “classic” approaches, other methods, such as observations have been employed to varying degrees of popularity. Among the observational methods, shadowing has been frequently utilized to study the various facets of school principals, though less frequently than in management studies (Bøe et al., 2017; Hughes, 2019). The origins of shadowing in the educational setting are often attributed to Henry Mintzberg and Harry F. Wolcott. Wolcott conducted what he called “the ethnographic study of a school principal”, consisting of “enumeration, participant observation and interviewing” (Wolcott, 1970, p. 116). He followed a school principal for two years, which quickly earned him the nickname “The Shadow” (Wolcott, 2014). Although he himself did not use the term “shadowing” at the time of his study, his approach was labeled as such by other scholars soon after Wolcott published his research.

Numerous criticisms and advantages of shadowing can be found in the literature. With reference to more structured shadowing variants, some researchers have criticized structured observation in educational leadership research for failing to adequately capture the complex and multifaceted activities of school principals (Gronn, 1982). Representatives of a more qualitative understanding countered similar criticisms by arguing that shadowing in an open, flexible variant is actually suited for capturing complex activities because it allows for focusing on the simultaneity of events in different settings, as well as the nonsimultaneity of experiences and growing number of actions and processes (Czarniawska, 2014). Other criticisms often leveled at qualitatively and quantitatively oriented variants of shadowing are “the high level of resourcing needed and the time it takes to undertake such studies” (Earley & Bubb, 2013, p. 20).

Additionally, ethical aspects can pose a challenge when using shadowing. As that shadowing involves the direct observations of people in their (professional) daily lives, its immersive as well as intimate and relational character needs to be considered (Bøe et al., 2017). Ethical aspects are noticeable here at different levels: First, shadowing can build intimacy and trust between the observer and observed person, which Czarniawska (2007) describes as “a peculiar twosome” (p.10). Second, shadowing always has an impact on the associated institution and its members, such as the school whose school leader is followed (Johnson, 2014), especially if the consent of all persons encountered was not obtained, or they may not have all been informed beforehand, requiring the researcher to “make ethical judgements in the moment” (Ferguson, 2016, p. 23). In this context, it is also important to consider issues of data protection or the involvement of third parties who might unknowingly participate in the research, such as parents.

The present contribution seeks to address the issues raised and continue the reflection on shadowing by analyzing the objectives and parameters of shadowing studies, definitions of shadowing, identified merits and pitfalls, and ethical considerations.

The methodological approach followed the PRISMA framework for systematic reviews (Page et al., 2021). Various databases (JSTOR, SAGE, ERIC and Google Scholar) were searched for relevant terms. The keywords used for searching were “shadowing,” “shadow*,” “structured observation,” combined with “school leader,” “principal,” “headteacher,” or “leadership.” The findings were then filtered, where technically possible, to include only studies related to “education,” “educational research,” “schools,” and similar terms, depending on the database. These searches yielded over 7000 possibly relevant results who were then screened, identifying many duplicates and studies from fields unrelated to educational leadership research (which were excluded). Retained publications were next screened according to the following criteria to be included in the analysis of the present contribution: • The study was required to be located in the field of educational leadership and management research. • A focus of the study needed to be on school principals, headteachers or superintendents (including early childhood educational settings, excluding higher educational institutional settings). • Shadowing had to be an exclusive method or part of the main methods used for data collection. • The publication date of the study needed to be 2017 or later as studies published earlier had been analyzed in a previous study. • The study needed to be in English. • The study had to explicitly make use of one of the following terms: “shadowing,” “shadowed,” “structured observation,” or “Mintzberg-type study.” Over the course of the analysis, this criterion was refined to also include studies in which none of these terms were used but where either the description of the method closely matched descriptions of shadowing or the key authors referenced in the methods sections were authors associated with structured observation or shadowing-type approaches (e.g., Mintzberg or Czarniawska). A total of 53 studies were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria. These studies were reviewed, analyzed, and compared based on the following questions: 1. What are the aims of the studies? 2. How is shadowing defined by the author(s)? 3. What are the major parameters of the shadowing activities (duration, observers, observed persons)? 4. What are the categories of observation? 5. In conjunction with what other – if any – methods is shadowing used? 6. What, if any, merits or pitfalls of shadowing are discussed? 7. What, if any, ethical considerations concerning shadowing are made?

Relevant studies were found from all around the world. Generally, the studies making use of shadowing contained little information on the conceptualization and use of shadowing. While the most studies aimed to examine the practices of school leaders through shadowing-type observations, without a detailed description of the procedure—and possibly anchoring it to an established paradigm—assessing the methods and the merits of the findings used became very challenging. The discussion of shadowing as a research method and its associated merits and pitfalls in the publications also revealed another desideratum: We could only find such discussions in a little over one-third of the studies. These were often connected to aspects already well-established in the literature. Even less discussion was found in the context of ethical aspects of shadowing. Just one-third of the studies contained references to these aspects. Although there were some studies in which the authors considered ethical issues, nearly half referred mainly to the research standards of their institutions, in some cases without any further explanations. Such a marginal consideration of ethical aspects in the analyzed studies appears insufficient due to the immersive and sometimes intimate nature of shadowing as a research method. Despite a new wave of new shadowing-type studies (based on the increased number of publications), many of the previously identified issues remain unsolved. From our point of view, considering the enduring staying power of shadowing in studies in Europe and across the globe there is (still) a great need for critical methodological discussions and reflections on shadowing and similar methods. The ongoing interest in these methods should be coupled with a (methodological) development in future research. To unleash the potential of shadowing studies, researchers need to be precise in their definitions and theoretical foundation, as well as rigorous and transparent in its use.

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