Overview

Shadowing: Building leadership capability through observing leaders in action explores shadowing as a form of professional support for educational leadership development. Shadowing offers an immersive opportunity for aspiring or current leaders to observe experienced practitioners in real-world settings. Shadowing can usefully complement mentoring, coaching, and other job-embedded professional supports.

The paper highlights:

• key characteristics of effective shadowing
• important considerations for successful shadowing experiences
• prompts to guide planning, implementation, and evaluation.

This paper aims to inform the design and delivery of effective shadowing opportunities within the School Leadership Institute (SLI) and across the department.

Definition

Shadowing serves as a professional development approach in which an observer learns directly from an experienced leader by following their daily activities. It allows the observer to see leaders in action, ask questions, and reflect on the knowledge and skills required for effective leadership. This can support observers to apply practices in their own contexts or prepare for future leadership opportunities.

Key characteristics of shadowing

• Structured and reflective: clear tasks and reflection for deeper thinking and growth.
• Experiential learning: real-world challenges for practical leadership insights.
• Reciprocal and collaborative: mutual learning and trust-building through collaboration.

Key considerations for effective implementation

• Time commitment: allocating sufficient time for deep engagement and meaningful learning.
• Effective modelling: balancing replication of practices with critical thinking and innovation.
• Relational trust: building trust, managing power dynamics, and ensuring confidentiality.

Next steps

The SLI is developing a new Shadowing for Leadership Development Program, which will be piloted in Semester 2 2025. More information on the pilot will be available then on the SLI’s Mentoring pages.

Resources on shadowing are also available from the School Leadership Identification Framework resource collection.