Retirement as Reinvention: Mark Lamberti and Charlene Lew on CEO Transformations

Retirement as Reinvention: How CEOs Navigate Identity After the C-Suite

Mark Lamberti and Charlene Lew’s recent study explores the complex process of retirement-led transformations among chief executives, framing it as a journey of Retirement as Reinvention.

For most, retirement and its relinquished responsibilities mark a phase of winding down, however, for chief executives known for structuring their lives around their careers, retirement marks the beginning of a deeper transformation. With a 40-plus-year career in leadership, retired CEO Mark Lamberti has often observed his colleagues hit a void upon retirement, leading them to profound revelations that restructured their pre-established identities.

Interviewing 17 retired CEOs of South African public companies, Lamberti’s recent doctoral research provided the basis for an article co-authored with Professor Charlene Lew of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, and published in the journal Personnel Review. It identified the complex process in which CEOs cope with retirement by reinventing themselves to maintain their sense of purpose and influence.

With chief executives often accustomed to the unique status, authority, and fulfillment that the C-Suite offers them, this post-retirement transition and subsequent transformation can be all-encompassing, requiring deep-rooted introspection and guidance that should occur prior to leaving one’s career.

“Our findings show that CEOs experience a profound void upon retirement that goes beyond the loss of position — it challenges their fundamental sense of self,” said Mark Lamberti to Higher Ed Drive. “The transition demands a complete reformation of identity, involving complex psychological and social processes that haven’t been fully understood until now.”

“The post-retirement void forced them to reflect on who they were without the status, trappings and infrastructure of their executive role. They were also shocked by how their closest relationships were affected by their retirement. For many of them, this was the first time they’d experienced deep introspective reflection on those elements of self unrelated to their executive roles.”

Transitional Tribulations: The Challenges of Retirement as Reinvention

While most CEOs acknowledged that resources like their health, finances, and network eased the transition into retirement, many remained ill-prepared for the adjustment. Spending their final hours as chief executives shoring up business dealings and ensuring their company’s success, those who neglected to prepare for their inevitable role shift were left with a rude awakening.

“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,” one former CEO told the researchers.

Lamberti and Lew found that this lack of psychological preparedness not only left executives at odds with their own expectations and feelings toward retirement but also made it difficult to connect with those who they would typically seek advice.

“You soon learn that because work defined so much of who you are, and because you’ve run your life in a certain way, that you actually run a big risk in the first instance on a personal level with your spouse,” another respondent explained. “What are those common and shared interests? You quickly find out that there aren’t many.”

Initially, CEOs recognized the desire to maintain a degree of their influence and impact, but struggled to balance their newfound leisure with their lifelong competencies. “I think it’s slightly sad, you know. There are people who have talent and have just switched it off for the

sake of, you know, enjoying themselves or taking it easy or being with the family. And they are just less, you know, just less interesting people,” one commented.

Turning to self-reflection and their relationships, colleagues, and society for cues on how to proceed, CEOs soon learned that this transition demanded a reevaluation of the perceived link between their careers and their sense of purpose and fulfillment—an awakening that aligns closely with the idea of retirement as reinvention.

As one of the study’s participants explained, “Rather than have your life revolve around ‘work really hard and then take brief moments away for exploration,’ [you] have more and more exploration, but still have something that is going to keep you occupied and thoughtful and contributing,”

Testing a variety of identity narratives and enactments through what Mark Lamberti and Charlene Lew labeled as “provisional selves”, the research found that CEOs with the most successful transitions had maintained a level of career-related contribution- whether it be through philanthropy, mentoring, or board service- while tapping into their post-retirement passions and relaxed responsibilities.

“What I’m trying to work out now is some of my personal passions, which I had which were not related directly to work. Can I make a contribution to people who might benefit from a degree of commerciality,” one executive reflected.

Lamberti and Lew’s Retirement Lessons

As a groundbreaking look into the identity reformations triggered when chief executives leave their roles, Lamberti and Lew’s study offers a variety of insights into how to prepare for and adjust to retirement.

“This study provides organizations and human resource specialists with a framework to guide retiring senior executives through the psychological effects, cognitive processes, and practical considerations of the retirement transition,” commented co-author Lew.

While many view retirement as the end of their professional era, spending the final months of their careers focused on their companies and fundamental resources like their health and financial assets, for CEOs, the innate desire to contribute and hold influence signifies retirement as a new beginning for self-discovery and psychological reconstruction—a concept the study encapsulates through the lens of retirement as reinvention.

In addition to providing a framework for how new and prospective retirees can navigate post-retirement transformations, this work illustrates the broader importance of finding purpose outside of work and channeling your career-related drive and expertise into less demanding yet equally fulfilling experiences.

As Lamberti explained to Business Insider Africa, “There’s no one-line answer to the deep retirement questions… They require introspection and reflection, aided by the people closest to you; the ones who know and love you, to define and redefine yourself.”

“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 — a core idea behind Retirement as Reinvention,” he continued.