A page about your topic

**The Hoopoe and the Simurgh as Metaphors For Leadership**
 While Attar’s Conference of the Birds is primarily looked at as a religious or a philosophical text, there is an argument to be made about Attar writing about his views on leadership as well. For instance, several of the bird's excuses for not wishing to go on the journey to find the Simurgh are connected to leadership and the upper-class—such as the Homa, who believes he is too important to go on the journey because he chooses kings to rule, and the partridge, that believes it's material wealth to be more important than going to find the Simurgh. The plot of the epic is started when the birds decide they need a leader that will lead them to greatness, so it is suggested that the journey is in search of the Simurgh. The Simurgh is one of two major leaders presented in the book—the other is the Hoopoe who leads the flock of birds through the seven valleys in search of the Simurgh. The Hoopoe seems to represent a singular good king who will lead the people for the time being but should strive towards an ending similar to the one the birds have. The birds in the end discover that the thirty survivors of their arduous journey make up the Simurgh itself, and as such, the Simurgh could be a metaphor for collective leadership within a community. Therefore, Attar seems to suggest that while a decent monarch is good for a community in the short term, a community should strive to lead itself as a collective group if they wish to succeed. As Dr. Kamram Mofid puts it: "I believe Attar's classic Persian story can teach us a lot about the principles of vision, participation, values-led and collective leadership we must embody to build a better and more harmonious world," (Mofid).
 The idea that The Conference of the Birds espouses a method of group leadership makes a bit more sense when you look at the personal life of Attar. While a renowned poet today, Attar himself was never recognized in his work until centuries after he died in the same town he was born. This likely stems from the fact that during his life, Attar never employed himself under a king or similarly high government figures like most other poets at the time did. Rather Attar worked as a pharmacist—his penname 'Attar' even being a descriptor of his profession—when he was not undertaking journeys for the sake of spiritual enlightenment. "Attar's travels seem to have been undertaken more in the pursuit of knowledge than patronage; during his life, he never sought a king's favor or wrote anything in nobles' praise," (Koshbakht, et al.) Going off of this, the most contact he might have had with any form of government leader during his lifetime would have been in the invading Mongol horde, which would go on to sack Attar's hometown of Nishapur in 1229. Many scholars believe that this is when Attar passed, and there are numerous folk tales regarding his death at the hands of the invading Mongols. Looking at this, it can be assumed that Attar would have had far more contact with lower-class people from all walks of life and most of the contact he would have received from largescale government figures would have been hostile at best. Therefore, if the Simurgh is to be considered both the ideal leader and made up of a community working together then it could be said that Attar witnessed communities coming together in times of great needs—like the remaining birds did throughout the seven valleys—and could have been convinced that they were capable of running themselves.
 The Simorgh itself is treated as the ideal of a leader by the birds throughout the story. "Judging by standards laid in mainstream leadership theories, Simorgh could be described as a visionary and charismatic leader, under her leadership the birds in the story seek to improve their rank among other animals," (Dai & Foroughi). This makes it all the more poignant that in the end, the birds discovered that their surviving flock makes up the Simorgh. From here, it can be argued that Attar is advocating that once a community proves themselves sufficiently capable, they should be left to govern themselves together. In this case, while the Hoopoe is an important leader at the start of the journey and throughout the flock's migration, once the birds get through the seven valleys and discover the Simurgh, the Hoopoe is barely mentioned at all. And while the seven valleys have undeniable religious undertones and meanings, these valleys can also be treated as personal trials that a community must endure that will make them ready to lead a community together.
 Therefore it can be argued that the flock of migrating birds can be considered a metaphor for a community working towards a common goal. The Workings of the Simurgh Metaphor in Distributed Leadership by Alireza Hejazi provides a chart that demonstrates this, as well as outlining the roles the major characters and events of the story have in shaping the metaphor. In it, Hejazi posits that the valleys the birds travel through represent the development or the growth of an organization. A few other important comparisons he outlines are the Simurgh representing communal wisdom or practice and the roles of each bird as corresponding to distributed leadership. "Shared or distributed leadership occurs when all members of a team are fully engaged in the leadership of the team and are not hesitant to influence and guide their fellow team members in an effort to maximize the potential of the team as a whole," (Hejazi 4). Meanwhile, Hejazi also places the Hoopoe as acting as the group's individual. In particular, it is the Hoopoe who convinces the other birds to stop making excuses and begin the journey, and it is the Hoopoe who comes up with the idea of seeking the Simurgh collectively in the first place. However, the Hoopoe also takes advice from the other birds and listens to their ideas and opinions, and incorporates the good ones into his strategies. This reflects the idea that the Simurgh could be construed as representing leadership being shared by an entire group, rather than only coming from a singular source.

 The Simurgh and the Hoopoe, in the end, both have their place leading the congregation of birds. The Hoopoe—the singular leader—however, is only needed in the journey until the Simurgh—the final thirty birds working together—is found. Therefore it can be argued Attar uses these birds as a basis for demonstrating his views on leadership, in addition to the rife religious messages the story is well known for.

**Sources**
Attar, and Wolpé Sholeh. The Conference of the Birds. W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
“Drawing of the Head of a Simurgh.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access Images,
www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452302.
Foroughi, H., & Dai, W. "Widening the leadership mythology: in the search for Simorgh."
PuntOorg International Journal, 2018, 2(1), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.wpn.2.1.2
Habiballah of Sava, and Farid al-Din Attar. “‘The Concourse of the Birds’, Folio 11r from a
Mantiq Al-Tair (Language of the Birds).” Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access Images, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/451725.
Hejazi, A. "The Workings of the Simurgh Metaphor in Distributed Leadership". Open
Access Library Journal, 1: e628, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1100628
Kandler, Johann Joachim. “Hoopoe (Wiedenhoppe) (One of a Pair).” Metropolitan Museum of
Art Open Access Images, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/205889?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&ft=hoopoe&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=2.
Khoshbakht, Maryam, Moussa Ahmadian, & Shahrukh Hekmat. "A Comparative Study of
Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales & Attar's The Conference of the Birds." International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature [Online], 2.1 (2013): 90-97. Web. 15 Nov. 2021
Mofid, Kamran. "Simorgh Tells Me: We Are the Leaders We Have All Been Searching For."
Globalization for the Common Good, 16 Sept. 2015, gcgi.info/blog/724-simorgh-tells-me-we-are-the-leaders-we-have-all-been-searching-for.