Purpose The purpose of this paper is to make a case for linking spiritual intelligence to the Indian university curriculum for creating sustainable leaders and change agents. The growing emphasis on higher education sustainability involves taking a step back from the daily rigors of academic life and giving a thought to the unique approaches to promote sustainability. Though there are several initiatives for making the environment in the campus sustainable – switching off lights/fans, reducing consumption, etc., there are very few initiatives promoting the transformation of the individual. This paper defines a new conceptual framework linking spiritual intelligence to leadership and sustainability of the higher education system. Design/methodology/approach This present study is analytical and comprises secondary data which are collected from research papers, books, periodicals and journals. Using keywords search in the Scopus database, a list of papers was arrived at, analyzed and distilled to arrive at select journals. These journals were cross-reference to the SCimago’s journal portal ranking and established journal selected. Papers based on these established journals were taken for systematic review and synthesis of literature. Literature studies for bibliometric analysis work were also conducted using the using tools like “VOSviewer” for precisely arriving at current and future areas of research. Findings There were three main findings: defined a new conceptual model/framework of practical spiritual intelligence in the higher education system; defined the key shared language of spiritual intelligence in a higher education system; and defined the key attributes of practical spiritual leadership and sustainability. Originality/value This research is based on developing a conceptual model of interaction between spiritual intelligence and spiritual leadership in a higher education university environment that can give us a new insight into the manifestation of practical spirituality in universities. The extent of research work, both conceptual as well as empirical, as evidenced, does indicate the growing and sustained interest in the subject of spirituality and spiritual intelligence, but there is limited research in the area of leadership development and sustainability in the higher education system.