The sustainable palm oil sector increasingly recognizes the importance of leadership development, institutional adaptability, and human resource enhancement in supporting sustainability-oriented governance. However, existing studies remain dispersed across multiple disciplinary perspectives, creating the need for a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge. This study systematically identifies, analyzes, and synthesizes contemporary evidence concerning leadership development, institutional transformation, management education, and capacity-building programs within the sustainable palm oil sector. This research employed a PRISMA-guided Systematic Literature Review (SLR) using secondary data retrieved exclusively from the Scopus database. An initial search generated 2,487 records, which were subsequently refined through relevance screening, publication-year criteria (2022–2026), language selection, and accessibility requirements. The final dataset consisted of 39 peer-reviewed articles. Data were analyzed through thematic coding and qualitative synthesis. The review identified six dominant themes: leadership competencies for sustainability-oriented governance, capacity building and human resource development, institutional transformation and organizational adaptation, management education and sustainability learning, multi-stakeholder collaboration and knowledge networks, and future challenges for leadership and institutional development. The findings indicate that leadership development, management education, and capacity-building initiatives function as interconnected mechanisms that strengthen organizational learning, institutional resilience, governance effectiveness, and sustainability-oriented decision-making. Overall, the literature suggests that investments in human capital and organizational learning contribute substantially to institutional transformation within sustainable palm oil systems. Future research should undertake comparative and longitudinal studies to evaluate the long term impacts of leadership and capacity-development initiatives across different organizational and geographical contexts.