The Principal's Principles | David Robinson [Read by Lorien Tolstrup]

Loading player...
A hundred lessons in school leadership.

After leading the top GDE school in Joburg's northern suburbs for many years, Dave Robinson shares his secrets and advice with the next generation of school leaders.

Education is a right for all young people in the world, yet quality and relevant education is still elusive. Schools are searching for the perfect recipe for success in a rapidly changing world. Principals are at the focal point of educational delivery, which makes leading schools throughout the world one of the most stressful and challenging occupations. It is a profession that requires many different life, leadership, and management skills. Working with people is, at best, filled with drama, and in addition, principals lead schools crowded with impressionable and volatile children or teenagers with all their changing hormones, peer pressure, the stresses of society, and the challenges emanating from their complex family structures. Teachers are facing huge challenges in the classroom that force heads of schools to give more supportive and constructive leadership. Creating the perfect balance between discipline, compassion, maintaining academic standards, and a relevant academic path for students, all while leading a motivated and skilled staff of teachers is a mammoth task for any individual.

This audiobook is a guide to the challenges facing a principal and the skills needed to navigate a school to success.
20 Dec 2023 English South Africa Books · Business

Other recent episodes

Puppet Master | James-Brent Styan

The secret of Markus Jooste and the Steinhoff crash When Markus Jooste died in 2024, he took many of Steinhoff’s secrets with him. But not all of them. The collapse of Steinhoff wiped more than R200-billion from global stock markets and exposed the largest corporate fraud in South African history…
23 Sep 4 min

Underdogs | Vusi Thembekwayo and Michael Hinton

Why do some individuals and businesses thrive despite impossible odds? What allows them to persevere when others quit? How can you develop the courage and conviction that define some of most remarkable success stories? Vusi Thembekwayo and Michael Hinton challenge the conventional wisdom that life is about becoming the ‘top…
23 Sep 4 min

The Gift of the Magi | O Henry [updated AI narration demo]

First published in 1905, this short story tells the tale of a young couple, Jim and Della, who are very poor but want to buy each other meaningful Christmas gifts. This is an UPDATED demonstration of an AI -generated version of Malcolm Gooding's voice.
21 Sep 14 min

Tracks in the Dust | Mario Cesare [read by Emmanuel Castis]

A Game Ranger's Journey. From the kitchen of his family's Italian restaurant in Johannesburg to the front lines of Africa's most dangerous anti-poaching operations, this is the story of a man who always belonged to the wild. Raised on Sicilian family stories and the constant bustle of his father's Italian…
2 Jul 4 min

Trace | Ryan Blumenthal [read by Matthew Dalton]

Case Studies of a Forensic Pathologist in Africa. Forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal calls the mortuary his office. He will make your hair stand on end as he describes the strange death scenes, rare murder cases and a range of unnatural deaths that are part of his world. Forensic pathologist Ryan…
2 Jul 1 min