A new Barna Group study, produced in partnership with C12 Business Forums, surveyed 356 U.S. CEOs in early 2025 and found that 89% either identify as Christian or say their faith is important in their life, a group Barna labels "Faith-Forward." What stands out is less the label than what these CEOs say drives them day to day. Asked about their top motivations, 82% pointed to having a positive impact on others, 79% to building a positive company culture, 77% to upholding moral standards in business, and 76% to fulfilling a personal sense of purpose. Broader societal impact, the kind of ambition that shows up in a mission statement, ranked near the bottom of the list. A companion installment of the same research asked what personal values shape how these CEOs lead, and the top answers were excellence and religious faith, followed closely by vision, gratitude, and creativity. The emphasis wasn't uniform across generations either: older CEOs from the Boomer generation and beyond leaned more heavily on humility, service, and religious faith, while younger CEOs from Gen Z and Millennial generations weighted creativity and openness to new ideas more heavily, a reminder that "faith-forward" leadership doesn't look identical from one leader to the next. Financial performance wasn't absent from the data, but it wasn't what these leaders reached for first when asked to describe themselves. The picture that emerges isn't a group of executives chasing a bigger platform. It's a group more concerned with the people already inside their walls and the standards they hold themselves to on an ordinary Tuesday.
This study invites every leader to consider what and why they're building.
— Mike Sharrow, CEO and President, C12 Business Forums
Barna's data also surfaces the harder half of the story. Three-quarters of the CEOs surveyed have a Christian background, but only 51% say their faith actively motivates their leadership. That gap, between holding a belief and building a business on it, is worth sitting with. It's entirely possible to be a Christian on Sunday and run a company the rest of the week on assumptions that never once touch that faith. Scripture doesn't leave much room to treat those as separate projects. In Genesis, Joseph is sold into slavery and lands in the household of an Egyptian official named Potiphar. He doesn't get a ministry role there; he gets put in charge of a pagan household's actual affairs. "He made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had" (Genesis 39:4, ESV). Joseph's faithfulness didn't sit off to the side of that job. It was the job: the integrity he brought to managing someone else's household was the substance of what he believed, not a hobby practiced around it. The text goes on to say the household prospered under his care, but that's a description of one household's outcome, not a promise extended to every leader who tries to do the same.
of Faith-Forward CEOs say having a positive impact on others is their top personal motivator as a leader, more than any other factor Barna measured. Barna Group, with C12 Business Forums, "Faith-Forward CEOs: How Faith Shapes the Way Leaders Lead" →
None of this is a formula. Barna's research doesn't say faith produces better margins, and Scripture doesn't promise that either; a business owner reading Joseph's story looking for a growth strategy is reading it for the wrong reason. What both point toward instead is a standard: what a leader is optimizing for when no one is measuring it. Closing the gap Barna found starts with specifics, not sentiment. A "positive company culture" is not a value stated in a handbook; it's whatever a manager tolerates in a hallway conversation when a customer isn't watching. "Upholding moral standards" is not a slogan; it's the decision to eat a cost, lose a sale, or have an uncomfortable conversation with a top performer because the alternative would be dishonest. GH Group's Inside-Out Method builds from a similar premise: how a leader runs the business on an ordinary day is the real measure of what they believe, not a mission statement or a verse framed in the lobby. For a Christian owner, that's not a separate spiritual project layered on top of running the company well. Running it well, honestly, and with real regard for the people inside it, already is the calling, whether or not it ever shows up as a line on next quarter's income statement.
