Last week, midway through a leadership workshop, a senior banker put down his pen and asked me, half joking and half hoping, “Doctor, IQ has a number, and EQ has a report. Where is my SQ certificate?” The room laughed. I did not, because it is one of the most honest questions I have ever been asked.
Can you actually measure a soul? It sounds absurd, and yet a serious spiritual intelligence test is no longer a fringe idea. Psychologists have spent two decades building instruments that assess how well you access meaning, purpose, stillness, and transcendence, the way an EQ assessment maps empathy. Some of these tools are rigorous, some are beautiful, and some are quietly misleading. If you have ever wondered whether your inner life can survive contact with a questionnaire, this article is for you.
First, what exactly are we measuring?
SQ, or spiritual quotient, is not religiosity. It is the intelligence you use to ask ultimate questions, hold values under pressure, and stay connected to something larger than your job title. The term entered mainstream conversation in the late 1990s through the work of thinkers such as Danah Zohar, and I treat it as the third pillar of the complete leader, alongside intellect and emotion, in my Tri-Intelligence Leadership model.
Measuring it relies on psychometrics, the science of turning invisible human qualities into reliable numbers. Every credible spiritual intelligence test is a self-report instrument, meaning you rate statements about yourself. Keep that phrase in mind; we will return to its beautiful flaw shortly.
1. The SISRI-24: the researcher’s favourite
The Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory, developed by David King and Teresa DeCicco in 2009, is a 24-item questionnaire that takes around ten to fifteen minutes and measures four capacities: critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. In plain language: how deeply you think about existence, how well you extract meaning from experience, how aware you are of the non-material, and how skilfully you enter expanded states of consciousness.
Its strength is scientific pedigree. It shows strong internal consistency, which simply means its questions hang together and measure one coherent thing, and it has been revalidated across cultures, from Portugal to Greece to Poland. If you want the most researched free instrument, start here.
2. The SQ21: the boardroom’s favourite
Created by Cindy Wigglesworth after twenty years in human resources at ExxonMobil, the SQ21 assessment was the first competency-based spiritual intelligence instrument, mapping twenty-one distinct skills, from ego-awareness to keeping your centre in the middle of chaos. It is deliberately faith-neutral and faith-friendly, usable by the devout, the agnostic, and the spiritual-but-not-religious alike.
What I admire is its framing. It treats SQ not as a mystical gift but as a set of trainable competencies, the way a gym treats strength. For executives who flinch at the word spiritual, this is usually the least threatening doorway, and the one I most often see used in leadership development.
3. The ISIS: the contemplative’s favourite
The Integrated Spiritual Intelligence Scale, developed by Yosi Amram and Chris Dryer, defines SQ as the ability to apply and embody spiritual resources to enhance daily functioning and wellbeing. It comes in an 83-item long form and a 45-item short form, with impressive reliability figures, and higher scores genuinely predicted wellbeing; people nominated by others as embodying spirituality scored significantly higher than their peers. That last finding matters: the test agrees with how you actually live, not only with how you see yourself. Built from Amram’s research across traditions, it is the most ecumenical of the five, measuring lived qualities such as presence, grace, and truthfulness rather than beliefs.
4. The PSI: the storyteller’s favourite
Richard Wolman of Harvard Medical School built the PsychoMatrix Spirituality Inventory, an 80-item instrument scored across seven factors: divinity, mindfulness, intellectuality, community, extrasensory perception, childhood spirituality, and trauma. It is less a ranking than a portrait, and Wolman’s research produces a spirituality profile rather than a single score.
Be aware of the caveat. Critics note that many PSI items read more like a measure of spiritual orientation than spiritual intelligence. I still value it, because its inclusion of childhood and trauma quietly acknowledges something coaching confirms daily: your spirituality has a biography.
5. The SIS: the seeker’s starting point
Dorothea Nasel’s Spiritual Intelligence Scale, developed in 2004, is a brief 17-item measure of how readily you draw on spiritual resources, whether prayer, intuition, or transcendence, to find meaning and make adaptive decisions. Its brevity is its gift and its limit. Reviewers point out it was developed within a Christian and new-age frame rather than an ecumenical one, as critical reviews of the field make clear. Treat it as a reflective starting point rather than a verdict.
The catch nobody tells you about
Here is the flaw I promised. Every self-report test is vulnerable to social desirability bias, our tendency to answer as the person we wish we were. And spirituality is the domain where we wish hardest. A composite figure from my coaching room, drawn from many real conversations: a CEO once completed the SISRI-24, scored well, and was visibly deflated it was not higher. His disappointment revealed more about his SQ than his score did. The ego had entered the temple and asked for a trophy.
This is why I ask clients to hold what I call the mirror score. A mirror score is what any spiritual intelligence test truly gives you: not a ranking of your soul, but a snapshot of your current relationship with yourself. A mirror is not a judge. You do not argue with it; you look, and then you decide what to do about what you see. India’s current spiritual hunger shows how many people are looking for exactly that honest glass.
Before you choose an instrument, sit with three questions. When did I last feel genuinely connected to something larger than my goals? Which of my daily decisions would change if meaning, not fear, were making them? And if my SQ were measured today, would I want the truth or the compliment?
No questionnaire can weigh a soul. But a good one can show you where your soul has stopped being consulted. The number is not the point. The mirror is.
So which test should you take?
If you want research rigour, take the SISRI-24. If you lead teams, take the SQ21. If you want depth across traditions, take the ISIS. If you want a narrative portrait, explore the PSI. If you want a gentle first step, the SIS will do. And if you want the score interpreted within the full architecture of IQ, EQ, and SQ, that is precisely what my certification workshop was built for.
Whichever you choose, remember the mirror score. The measurement is not the growth; it is merely the honest place growth begins. If you would like help reading your own reflection, you are welcome to book a fifteen-minute conversation with me. Bring your score, or bring nothing at all. The mirror works either way.
