A relaxing and fulfilling retirement is often a career professional’s ultimate goal, but for CEOs accustomed to years in the corner office, this transition can have resounding repercussions. A recent study conducted by Mark Lamberti and Charlene Lew of the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science, analyzed over 34 hours of in-depth interviews with 17 retired CEOs to investigate the unique identity-based obstacles that executives face upon losing the routine and responsibility of their careers.
This study, published in the journal Personnel Review, uncovered a series of psychological and social challenges triggered by retirement that forced CEOs to undergo what the authors refer to as “identity reformation”. This understudied and complex process is shown to take place throughout several distinct stages that require profound introspection and preparation.
Post-Retirement Unpreparedness and Unfulfilled Opportunities:
While the months leading up to retirement can be some of the busiest in a CEO’s career- devoted to naming a successor and ensuring continued growth- given the scope and demand of identity reformation, it is also one of the most crucial periods of their golden years.
Although each CEO interviewed by Mark Lamberti and Charlene Lew was well aware of their impending retirement date, the study found that none had prepared for or even considered the potential identity struggles. This left executives uncertain about how to approach their new stage of life despite feeling the obligation to meaningfully contribute to society.
“Society, my friends, my colleagues would expect me to give back. If there are corporates that you can play a role in as a non-exec and add value, you should do that, because it is needed,” one former executive explained.
“And if you can give back to the country, society would be happier if you are giving back 90 percent. Society is not too excited if I spend 90 percent of my time looking after the pot that I have built up.”
While many executives felt that their knowledge and expertise offered untapped benefits to the public sector, their lack of planning combined with South Africa’s complex social, political, and legislative pressures often hindered potential contributions, leaving them at further odds with their post-retirement identity.
“My unfulfilled wish in South Africa has been to go and help the government . . . and work for nothing,” said one respondent.
The Identity Void:
Feeling uncertain and unfulfilled in their post-retirement identities, Mark Lamberti’s research found that former CEOs were challenged with a void soon after leaving their position, taking them through a period of self-reflection and perspective seeking that often evoked epiphanies.
“All of a sudden . . . I wasn’t connected to anything. I found that very unsettling. There were some days where I actually thought I was going to sort of fall apart completely. I felt there were days when I felt I’d lost a lot of confidence . . . there was no diary, and nobody was talking to me. And so, what next,” a retiree reflected.
Pursuing stronger connections with family and long-term networks, executives sought out “role identity cues” for insights on ways to move forward. “What I did was reach out to a couple of people that I have really, really trusted and said, ‘Okay, now I need your advice just thinking things through,’” a respondent explained.
Finding that the social and societal expectations of retirement didn’t quite align with their own, CEOs also turned to their resources, namely their skillset and mental and physical acuity, for guidance on forming a new identity
“I’ve got a bunch of resources. I know I can read numbers. I know I’m a good manager,” one former executive commented on their competencies applicable to retirement.
Upon interpreting the signals from their relationships and resources, Lamberti and Lew found that executives underwent a period of “Sensemaking”, where they bridged their career aptitudes with post-retirement passions to begin the first step of identity enactment and emergence.
Identity Enactment Implications:
Once their new identities had begun to manifest, retired CEOs began “constructing identity narratives” as a way to impart their new roles with a deeper meaning that links them to their past profession. As they seek to adhere to the expectations of their networks and society, executives cycled through a variety of narratives and iterations of their identities by evoking what the authors called “provisional identities” before settling on a stable new identity.
“Finding my kind of higher order of capability based on deep experience and disciplined training I’ve been through in corporate life. When I was invited onto that board, I found it quite seamless that I could go into that mastery phase without having to be the formal conductor.”
“And again, that awakened, well, it was good positive affirmation stuff, you know, that you’re not useless, you haven’t been made redundant, that you’ve actually still got value and firepower left in you,” said one retiree on their ability to develop a continuity between old and new identities.
While the most successful reformations were those that leveraged their corporate competencies in a minimally demanding capacity, this research also highlights the importance of separating one’s sense of purpose and self-worth from their career before retirement.
As one respondent explained “So, rather than your life revolve around “work really hard and then take brief moments away for exploration”, have more and more exploration, but still have something that is going to keep you occupied and thoughtful and contributing, but without leaving the room with all the next steps and responsibility.”
For CEOs known to spend an average of over 60 hours per week in the office, this decoupling can be profoundly difficult. However, when accomplished without compromising their innate desire for societal contribution, it’s proven immensely freeing.
“Nurture your identities beyond your business role. Don’t let your business card define you. Understand who you are in your different roles,” Mark Lamberti suggests.
He continues, “Of course, you are plagued by this whole notion that if your life has been built on a series of successful steps to achieve great things, peaking in the C-suite or as a CEO of a company, then almost everything else seems like a failure. That notion must be supplanted by the realization that the measures of well-being in a successful post executive life are different.”
