Saadi's Gulistan Leadership Lessons: 7 Practices for Fair Leaders

Who was Saadi, and why do leaders still read him?

Saadi of Shiraz was a thirteenth-century Persian poet. Britannica gives his birth as about 1213 and his death in Shiraz in December 1291; other sources differ by a few years. The upheaval of the Mongol invasions sent him travelling for years through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt and Iraq. Back in Shiraz he wrote two books that are still read across the Persian-speaking world: the Bustan (The Orchard, 1257), in verse, and the Gulistan (The Rose Garden, 1258), in prose and verse.

Both open with chapters on kingship. The first chapter of the Bustan is on justice and government; the first chapter of the Gulistan is on the conduct of kings. They are made of short tales: a king about to execute a prisoner, a vizier jailed for honest advice, a herdsman who knows every horse in the herd while his king does not recognise him. The tales are short enough to remember in a hard meeting.

In this article we quote Saadi only from nineteenth-century public-domain translations: James Ross (1823), E. B. Eastwick (1880) and Edward Rehatsek (1888) for the Gulistan, and H. Wilberforce Clarke (1879) for the Bustan. Their English is Victorian, so we add a plain-English line after each.

What is the circle of justice?

Saadi wrote alongside a wider Persian tradition of 'mirrors for princes', advice books for rulers. Two of the best known are the Siyasatnama (Book of Government), traditionally attributed to Nizam al-Mulk, vizier to the Seljuq sultans, and written for Sultan Malikshah around 1086 to 1091, and the Qabus-nama, completed in 1082 by Kai Ka'us, a Ziyarid prince, for his son. Across this literature runs an idea often called the circle of justice. It has several historical formulations; in our own words: no authority without people to support it, no people without prosperity, no prosperity without justice.

Saadi tells it as a story. A Persian king seizes his subjects' property until they flee, the treasury empties and enemies grow bold. His vizier asks how the legendary Feridun won a throne with no treasure or army; people gathered round him, says the king. Then, in Ross's version: "Since, O sire, a gathering of the people is the means of forming a kingdom, how come you in fact to cause their dispersion" The king jails the vizier, and the people he drove away later join his rivals.

The Bustan uses a tree. On his deathbed the just king Nushirvan tells his son, in Clarke's version: "The subject is like the root, and the king the tree ; Oh son ! the tree is strong by reason of the root." For a modern manager the circle becomes a loop: fairness keeps people, people create results, results fund authority, and authority used well protects the people who produced it.

How do you hear the voices that never reach you?

Saadi's most useful line for managers may be this one, from the Bustan: "By the noise of the drum, the rich man became awake ; What knows he as to how the night of the watchman passed ?" Comfortable people are woken by the noise; they have no idea what the night was like for the person on watch.

Voices go missing through distance, not malice: shifts, time zones, contracts, outsourcing and layers of management. In the tale of Darius and the herdsman, the herdsman tells the king: "The condition of living in greatness is such, That thou shouldst know each humble person, who he is."

A practical habit is a three-minute morning check. Ask yourself, before the inbox: whose voice is not reaching me? Name one person or group from the edge of your circle (contractors, night shifts, outsourced teams, junior staff, small suppliers, quiet customers) and choose one small way to hear them that day. Ask specific questions such as 'What slowed you down most this week?' rather than 'Any issues?'

How should a leader hear complaints?

The mirrors are practical. The Siyasatnama tells the ruler to set aside two sessions a week to hear the complaints of the wronged in person, and describes earlier kings who heard complaints from a raised stand on the open plain, because in a palace, doorkeepers could keep people out. Saadi makes the same point with an image: "How mayst thou hear the lament of one crying for justice, The curtain of thy bed-place at Saturn ? So sleep, that the lamentation may come to thy ear."

The Qabus-nama adds a story about accountability. A man robbed by a governor wins a written order for redress from Sultan Mahmud; the governor ignores it. When the man returns, the busy sultan says giving orders is all he can do, and then, challenged, admits that the shame is his own, not the complainant's. (The book then has the governor executed; that part we leave behind.)

What does Saadi say about advisers and flatterers?

The very first story of the Gulistan is about two viziers. A condemned prisoner curses the king in a foreign tongue; a kind vizier says he is praising those who forgive, and the king relents. A rival insists on the literal truth, and the king prefers the first version because it came from goodwill rather than malice. The story ends, in Ross's version: "Whatever prince may do that which he (his counsellor) will recommend, it must be a subject of regret if he shall advise aught but good." Saadi is not telling advisers to lie; he is saying motive matters.

The opposite failure is agreement from fear. Asked privately why he sided with the king against the other ministers, a chief vizier replies: "Were he verily to say this day is night, it would behoove us to reply: Lo! there are the moon and seven stars." Yet the same vizier says that if he saw a blind man walking towards a pit, he would be at fault to stay silent. Saadi's eighth chapter adds: "Whoever is counselling a self-sufficient man stands himself in need of a counsellor."

In practice: list the people whose advice shapes your decisions and note when each last told you something unwelcome. Speak last in meetings, name a red team for big decisions, run a pre-mortem before committing, and thank the first person who disagrees, in the room.

How should leaders treat people with little power?

When an unjust ruler asks Saadi to pray against a powerful enemy, Saadi replies, in Ross's version: "Have compassion on your own weak subjects, that you may not see disquiet from a strong foe." A few lines later come his often-quoted lines on shared humanity, here in Rehatsek's 1888 translation: "The sons of Adam are limbs of each other Having been created of one essence."

The tale of the salt is the clearest small lesson. On a hunting trip Nushirvan insists on paying the village for a pinch of salt: "Take it at its fair price, and not by force, lest a bad precedent be established and the village desolated." Most unfairness at work also starts small: late invoices for a sole trader, the worst shifts always given to agency temps, schedule changes sent to an outsourced team the night before.

A monthly duty-of-care check covers five areas for the least powerful people in your area: pay, notice of change, allocation of work, safety and facilities, and voice. The test is simple: if this person were treated unfairly, how easily could they make it stop? Contractor and supplier rights differ by country and contract, so check anything legal with HR, procurement or legal.

Why should a leader cool down before judging?

The Bustan puts the case in one image, in Clarke's version: "When anger comes to thee, on account of a person's crime. Reflect much on his punishment ; Because, it is easy to break the ruby of Badakhshan. Broken, it is not possible to fasten it together again." Trust, reputation and a person's standing in a team are like that jewel.

The Qabus-nama gives a working rule: as long as you can still buy time, do not rush to act. The Siyasatnama devotes a chapter to haste. And in a Bustan tale a king who hears an accusation against a newly promoted minister holds his anger, speaks to the man privately and learns that the accuser is a jealous rival.

A modern version: no decision about a person while you are angry; wait a cooling-off period (24 hours is a sensible default) unless safety or a legal duty requires an interim step; hear both sides; check proportion against the person's record and what you would do for anyone else; correct in private; and follow your HR process for anything formal. Cooling off is never a reason to delay action on harassment, safety or fraud.

What should leaders leave behind from these texts?

These books were written for absolute monarchs. They recommend spies and informers, describe cruel punishments, and contain attitudes to women, enslaved people and other groups that no modern workplace should accept. Later chapters of the Siyasatnama include hostile, sectarian passages about religious groups the author considered heretical, and scholars debate how much of the surviving text Nizam al-Mulk wrote. Take the advice on listening, fairness and restraint; leave the rest.

The texts also come from a Persian and Islamic heritage that many readers hold dear. Use them as literature and leadership reflection, with respect, not as religious instruction or proof-texts. And nothing in them replaces employment law or company policy on grievances, monitoring and discipline.

How can you start practising this week?

Start with two habits. Each morning, ask whose voice is not reaching you and hear one missing person or group that day. Each week, hold a fixed open-door hour and close every loop within a fortnight. In week four, add a monthly review of four stakeholder groups (your team, your customers, the least powerful contributors and the wider organisation), your complaint register and your advisers.

If you want a measured baseline, an assessment such as AssessAll's Speak-Up: Raising a Concern and Hearing One can help you compare before and after. To keep the practice going, Jobulary's guide to a development plan that survives week six turns it into goals with review dates. And if you want the whole system ready to use, The Circle of Justice kit from Bodhih Training includes the e-book, the Circle of Justice Audit workbook, fillable forms, scripts, a 52-card deck and a 12-week programme calendar.