Life After an Executive Role: How a Mentor Can Ready You For What's Next

The hidden challenges departing CEOs face

While organizations often invest heavily in successfully onboarding new CEOs, you will find considerably less attention paid to supporting CEOs' departures. After years—perhaps decades—of making tough decisions, shouldering immense responsibilities, and shaping your organization's identity, handing over the reins can feel like surrendering a part of yourself. It's a highly emotional and complex time—and one tailor made for a mentor to help you navigate.

You may be considering stepping down for any number of reasons. Perhaps you've achieved everything you set out to accomplish, or family and personal commitments have taken precedence. Some executives reach a point where they recognize the organization needs fresh perspectives and different leadership skills to navigate its next chapter. Others may be responding to board pressure or addressing personal health concerns. Whatever your motivation, the path forward varies greatly among executives.

While many look forward to life beyond the C-suite and the new opportunities it brings, others may view this transition as a disorienting and uncertain period. This transition can be particularly challenging if you struggle to separate your personal identity from your role as CEO. For 47% of the CEOs we surveyed, their role as leaders is core to their identity.

Those who associate their professional identity closely with their executive position are likely to encounter the most difficulties in adjusting when the time comes to transition out of the role. Stepping away from the C-suite can trigger profound questions about purpose, value, and future direction.

How mentorship can transform your transition experience

While mentors are typically introduced when CEOs join an organization, their guidance can be equally crucial as you prepare to exit. Stepping down represents a deeply personal psychological and professional transition. A mentor—a former executive who has successfully transitioned—understands the emotional terrain you're navigating and can guide you through this complex period across three critical dimensions.

1. Help you relinquish control

As your departure approaches, you'll need to gradually transfer control to your successor. You may believe—often correctly—that the organization still needs your expertise. Your leadership team, having developed strong relationships with you, might continue seeking your input on critical matters. However, it's your responsibility to redirect these questions to avoid creating even the appearance of parallel reporting structures.

Similarly, when long-term decisions arise during your transition, you might feel compelled to handle them yourself rather than allowing your successor to step in. But each time you retain control of decisions that will outlast your tenure, you inadvertently undermine your successor's authority and send mixed signals throughout the organization about who's truly in charge.

An effective mentor can help you to recognize these situations and to develop appropriate responses. They can offer perspective on how your continued involvement might be perceived and suggest constructive alternatives that respect organizational boundaries. Your mentor can also help identify meaningful areas where your expertise can continue creating value—whether through knowledge transfer, relationship introductions, or in an advisory capacity. The key is to find the right balance while respecting your successor's boundaries.

Many outgoing executives find it difficult to watch their successors make changes to cherished initiatives or take the organization in new directions. A mentor can help you distinguish between genuinely problematic decisions and different approaches that deserve space to develop. This emotional distance becomes crucial for maintaining positive relationships with your successor and preserving your legacy.

2. Manage complex emotions

Leaving your executive role behind can trigger unexpected emotional responses that might catch you off guard, despite your experience. Upon announcing your departure, you may experience myriad emotions—from guilt or sadness around leaving behind the close bonds you’ve formed with your leadership team, to excitement and trepidation for what's next.

For many executives, the realization that relationships built over years will inevitably change can trigger grief responses. Simultaneously, you might experience relief at the prospect of leaving behind the pressure and scrutiny that can accompany executive leadership.

As your operational involvement decreases during this time, you might feel increasingly sensitive to being excluded from information flows and decision processes you previously controlled. Even when intellectually understanding the necessity of this shift, the emotional impact of feeling ‘out of the loop’ can be significant.

A mentor anticipates these phases and creates safe spaces for you to process these emotions, helping to normalize and contextualize your responses. Understanding that feelings of grief, uncertainty, or even relief are common during leadership transitions can make these emotions manageable rather than destabilizing. This emotional scaffolding proves particularly valuable when your professional network primarily consists of connections made through your executive role—connections that may evolve once your position changes.

3. Craft your meaningful next chapter

Our research found that 53% of surveyed CEOs made no concrete plans for their post-executive life—which might come as a surprise considering these individuals are often renowned for their strategic thinking. You might be asking yourself: "Who am I now that I'm no longer in charge?"

The post-executive landscape offers diverse possibilities, each with distinct considerations. Your mentor can help guide you through the process of determining your next steps. Are you interested in pursuing non-executive board roles, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, or retirement? Through structured self-reflection, your mentor can help you assess core motivations and values outside your organization, identify transferable skills and interests, evaluate available options, and create specific action plans with accountability measures.

For those considering portfolio careers combining board positions with advisory roles, mentors can provide practical guidance on managing multiple commitments while maintaining work-life balance. If philanthropy interests you, your mentor can help evaluate how your leadership experience might create maximum impact in nonprofit contexts. Those considering entrepreneurship can benefit from candid discussions about the dramatic shift from leading established organizations to building ventures from scratch.

This process transforms a potentially disorienting period into an opportunity for intentional reinvention and continued impact. Many executives report that with proper guidance, their post-leadership chapters become among their most personally fulfilling—offering opportunities to apply hard-won wisdom in new contexts while reclaiming personal time and autonomy.

Reframing your executive transition

With proper mentorship, your departure need not represent an ending but rather simply another meaningful transition in your career. Mentorship ensures that you, having contributed significantly to your organization, can navigate your next chapter with the same purposeful impact that defined your executive tenure.

By recognizing the psychological complexity of this transition and securing appropriate support, both you and your organization benefit—maintaining positive relationships, enabling smoother succession, and allowing you to continue contributing meaningfully in new contexts.

Authors

Symon Elliott leads Russell Reynolds Associates' Global CEO Mentorship Program. He is based in London.
Kurt Harrison co-leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Sustainability practice. He is based in New York.