From corner office to quiet moments: Mark Lamberti’s take on retirement’s identity shift

With the Pew Research Center reporting that nearly four in ten workers consider their careers a crucial component of their identity, it’s no surprise that the shift into retirement often leads to feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress as many are left unfulfilled in the adjustments and newfound roles and identities of their day-to-day lives.

These feelings are particularly profound among C-Suite executives, who are often so focused on their careers that they form their networks, ambitions, and purpose around them- finding themselves lost upon transitioning to retirement.

With a 40-plus-year career in business leadership, South African CEO Mark Lamberti has long witnessed the dichotomy between executives like himself- whose schedule remains jam-packed in retirement- and those who left work and found their lives devoid of true purpose and opportunity.

“Some retire to the coast, play golf three times a week, and you can’t have an interesting conversation with them in two years time,” he explains.

“For years they’ve forged a career of achievement operating with a support infrastructure, with personal and corporate status and reputation related to their role, in complex, challenging daily interface with various stakeholders. And then they retire and the next day there’s no emails in the box and people don’t return calls as quickly. So it is quite a dramatic experience.”

Prepping for post-retirement:

Leveraging his observations in his doctoral thesis, “Exploring Postretirement Role Identity Emergence in Public Company CEOs,” Lamberti has found that the CEOs who struggled the most with the shift to retirement worked their entire lives without reflecting upon their future or identities outside of work. Upon retirement, these CEOs had little to turn to as they continued to form their identities around their business cards despite the clear shift in their day-to-day lives.

To ensure a fulfilling retirement, it’s crucial to look beyond your career and reflect upon your external roles and identities that offer continued enrichment, community, and purpose.

“For a high profile C-Suite executive, retirement is arguably one of the most dramatic life events, comparable to divorce or the loss of a loved one. The loss of the title, status, network, support structures and relationships associated with a senior executive role forces us to ask and answer the existential question ‘Who am I?’. Every executive is best served by finding answers to that question long before retirement,” Mark Lamberti said to Business Insider Africa.

“These are deep questions, who am I now and how do I redefine myself? And then the big question, of course, who do I hope to become.”

Finding a balance to foster fulfilment:

Without thoroughly reflecting upon these questions, Lamberti finds that CEOs often approach their post-retirement identities as a manifestation of their leisures, devoting their time to trivial activities that leave them lacking connection and yearning for their time in the office.

Working over 50% more per week than the typical employee, CEOs lacking external roles often find their lives dominated by their careers, and can develop a warped perception of achievement and connection that depends on their roles and relationships cultivated in the office. Many fail to recognise that their most pivotal and fulfilling identities are those outside of the office- spouse, parent, community member- that we tend to take for granted.

By defining their multifaceted identities before their golden years, CEOs can ensure retirement is equally as fulfilling as their career and create a work-life balance that grants greater motivation and productivity throughout their careers and external lives.

“The fact is that we are all more than our work role identity,” he asserts. “The strange thing, of course, is that research has shown that job satisfaction and life satisfaction are positively related and causal. If you do have life satisfaction, you’re going to be better at your job and vice versa, provided you don’t let the job bury you. Work role productivity and satisfaction increase when non-work roles are fulfilling.”

Retirement is undoubtedly one of the most significant life changes a CEO can face, but this change doesn’t have to be sudden. Like Mark Lamberti, the CEOs who adjusted best to retirement made long-term deliberate efforts to nurture their careers and personal lives simultaneously, making the shift in their roles and identities significantly less daunting.

“One of the central arguments of my thesis is that you can’t think about retirement at the very last minute,” Lamberti states. If you do, it’s going to take you at least a couple of years to settle and you probably won’t be as happy as you’d like to be.”

“Without this investment of time and effort in ourselves, we will look back and realise that we have not grown — we have not done those things necessary to realise our potential and to be the best we can be.”