This paper contributes to method development in educational leadership research. The focus is on a visual method and the inclusion of visual material in data collection and analysis. Core concepts in this paper are educational leadership, power and authority. The method was used in face-to-face interviews in a research project that studied the steering and governing in, and of, Swedish schools. The method enhances verbal narratives when informants reason and motivate their understandings of positions, relations and hierarchies within the organisations. We found that using visual material encouraged informants to reason and problematise formalised leader positions, their relations and the hierarchies that appear. The method helps to visualise the informants’ understandings of the power distribution within the organisation depending on whether positions are described as distant or close, horizontal or vertical. The method made the informants take a stand on complex matters, reflect, and gain insights about their organisations. It provided us, as researchers, with rich data material. By making subjective understandings visual, implicit assumptions were made explicit. This could challenge the knowledge on existing leadership and power norms within educational organisations, and most likely in other forms of organisations as well.

本文有助于教育领导力研究的方法开发。重点是视觉方法以及在数据收集和分析中包含视觉材料。本文的核心概念是教育领导力、权力和权威。该方法用于研究瑞典学校的指导和管理的研究项目的面对面访谈。当信息提供者推理并激发他们对组织内的职位、关系和等级的理解时，该方法增强了口头叙述。我们发现使用视觉材料鼓励线人对正式的领导职位、他们的关系和出现的等级进行推理和问题化。该方法有助于可视化信息提供者对组织内权力分配的理解，具体取决于职位描述为远或近、水平或垂直。该方法使信息提供者对复杂的问题采取立场，反思并获得有关其组织的见解。它为我们作为研究人员提供了丰富的数据材料。通过使主观理解可视化，隐含的假设变得明确。这可能会挑战教育组织内现有领导力和权力规范的知识，最有可能在其他形式的组织中也是如此。具有丰富的数据资料。通过使主观理解可视化，隐含的假设变得明确。这可能会挑战教育组织内现有领导力和权力规范的知识，最有可能在其他形式的组织中也是如此。具有丰富的数据资料。通过使主观理解可视化，隐含的假设变得明确。这可能会挑战教育组织内现有领导力和权力规范的知识，最有可能在其他形式的组织中也是如此。