The complexity of exercising school leadership in Australia has increased substantially. The shift towards school-based management places new demands of autonomy, efficiency and accountability on the principal (Wildy & Louden, 2000). Extra responsibilities include the challenges presented by the changing nature of student learners, the expansion of technology, the need for appropriate pedagogy and demands made of teachers in a turbulent educational environment. In addition, most principals begin their career in small rural or remote schools and we have written about the challenges of isolation, conservatism and visibility that such settings bring (Clarke & Wildy, 2004). It is not surprising that, internationally, principal preparation programs offered by universities, departments of education and professional bodies have attracted considerable attention (Bush & Jackson, 2002). However, in Australia the traditional apprenticeship model prevails, by which leaders are prepared by moving from classroom teachers to master teachers and to school principalship (Su, Gamage & Mininberg, 2003). Principals are prepared, by and large, on the job using narrow, disconnected, technicist models of management training (Clarke, Wildy & Pepper, in press). In this context, then we sought to answer the question: How were principals prepared to deal with the tensions and dilemmas they face in their day-to-day work?A sample of five novice principals - three female and two male, aged between 24 and 51 years - was selected with help from the staffing directorate of the education authority. All participating principals were newly appointed to their first schools and none had previously held substantive positions as principals. The schools to which they were appointed were located in small rural or remote communities. The study used four sources of data. In the first quarter of the year, all participants were interviewed throughout two-day site visits. Three narrative accounts illustrating key issues faced by the principals were written from each visit. In the middle of the year the participating principals met in a focus group to workshop a set of three narratives specifically to find out their perceptions of the issues that were illustrated and how they might be dealt with. Later in the year a second round of interviews was conducted, again asking participants to reflect on how they might have been better prepared to deal with the tensions and dilemmas they faced. A fourth source of data was a focus group for experienced principals using the same materials as were used for the novice principals' focus group. The purpose was to ascertain their understandings of the issues faced by the novice principals and their views about how these novice principals might have been better prepared for their job.Conclusions or expected outcomes or findingsAnalysis of 15 narrative accounts and the responses of both novice and experienced principals to focus group questions suggest that the tensions and dilemmas of these novice principals can be conceptualised as: dealing with context; dealing with staff; dealing with the system; and dealing with self. We articulated these themes in terms of context; leadership; socialisation; and resilience. However, this study suggests that these principals, while articulating the problems they faced, had difficulty identifying how they might have been better prepared for their position. They showed little shared language, personal philosophy or theoretical understanding of the nature of leadership. This finding is not surprising since, in this educational jurisdiction, principals are expected to learn by doing, on the job. Their common language is built on folk wisdom learned by trial and error, and on the managerial rhetoric of their employer. We argue that, in this jurisdiction, a serious and worrying gap exists in the provision of systematic, iterative, deeply reflective, extended preparation for principals that links theory and practice. For these principals, any preparation beyond a three-day induction conference - where rudimentary legal and human resource issues are discussed - would be a sound step forward. Bush, T. & Jackson D. (2002). A preparation for school leadership: International perspectives. Educational Management and Administration, 30(4), 417-429. Clarke, S. & Wildy, H. (2004). Context counts: viewing small school leadership from the inside out, Journal of Educational Administration, 42(5) 555-572. Clarke, S. R. P., Wildy, H. & Pepper, C. (in press). Connecting preparation with reality: Primary principals' experiences of their first year out in Western Australia. Leading & Managing. Su, Z. Gamage, D. & Mininberg, E. (2003). Professional preparation and development of school leaders in Australia and the USA. International Education Journal, 4(1), 42-59. Wildy, H. & Louden, W. (2000). School restructuring and the dilemmas of principals' work, Educational Management and Administration, 28(3), 173-184.