During May 2006 a group of teaching assistants were asked a series of questions about their opinions of morality, power and leadership to inform a conference on this topic funded by the three bodies involved in educational leadership (BELMAS, BERA and SCRELM). This article investigates how teaching assistants perceive the location of power within their schools. It also explores teaching assistants' perception of the extent of their power within schools. Teaching assistants tended to treat power and leadership as synonymous and gave little attention to morality in their responses. The authors begin by examining the way that power may be defined in relation to teaching assistants' work in schools. They then outline the methods used to gather data and highlight some of the key issues this research poses for the research community. (Contains 2 figures and 3 notes.)