Auditing the Future of Workplace Coaching

Dr Helene Seiler
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  • Management
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I am a veteran coach, deeply invested in the profession's agile evolution. Now, AI coaching chatbots are here, and I am not scared—I'm curious. My burning question: How are they trained? I want transparency into AI models to ensure safety and effectiveness. In this pivotal moment, driven by Large Language Models, I hope to spark vital discussions within the workplace coaching community. This will be a weekly podcast. The first season will focus on the future of coaching theory.

  1. 3d ago

    EPISODE 11: Personality traits in retirement

    Episode notes: This episode explores how the Big Five personality traits shape the transition into retirement, with high neuroticism emerging as the strongest predictor of a difficult adjustment. Extraversion and agreeableness cansupport social connection, while conscientiousness may become challenging when familiar standards and measures ofachievement disappear. Openness to experience can help make reinvention easier, especially for highly conscientious women leaders. References Löckenhoff, C. E., Terracciano, A.,& Costa, P. T. (2009). Five-factor model personality traits and the retirement transition: Longitudinal and cross-sectional associations. Psychologyand Aging, 24(3), 722–728. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015121 Topa, G., Moriano, J. A., Depolo, M.,Alcover, C. M., & Morales, J. F. (2018). Personality and perceived retirement adjustment: A multilevel meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 104, 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.11.009

  2. Sep 25

    Three Women at the Threshold

    Retirement is not only a financial transition—it is a testof identity, purpose, security, and the values that shaped a career. Through three archetypes, this episode explores what different women may fear, seek, or overcompensate for as they approach life beyond work.It then reframes money as a conduit for deeper values such as performance, power, status, and safety.·      Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content andstructure of values.·      Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theoryof basic values.·      Hogan, J., & Hogan, R. (1996). Motives, Values,Preferences Inventory (MVPI).·      Hogan Assessment Systems. (2020). Summary technicalinformation for validity and norm groups: HPI, HDS, and MVPI.·      Fischer, R. (2017). Personality, values, culture: Anevolutionary approach.

  3. Sep 18

    Episode 9: What Do You Value?

    Podcast Notes This episode looks at why retirement rarely triggers the deepvalues overhaul people expect: research on more than five thousand workers finds that your values stay largely intact after you stop working, but the everyday outlets for expressing them disappear, turning what looks like a“values crisis” into an “expression crisis,” and why leaders with the strongest intrinsic connection to their work often report lower retirement satisfaction; it introduces the Hogan Motives, Values and Preferences Inventory (MVPI) as atool for getting precise about what you value, and walks through four of its ten dimensions that matter most in a retirement transition — Recognition (theneed for visibility, and the risk of feeling invisible once the title and audience are gone), Power (the need for real, not honorary, decision-making authority), Altruism (the drive to contribute, best channeled into generativity like mentoring or building something lasting rather than token volunteering),and Hedonism (the capacity for pleasure and fun, often suppressed after decades of deferred gratification) — before closing with a one-minute exercise: rankingthose four values from most to least true of yourself and checking whether your current retirement plan makes room for the one at the top. References Dingemans, E., & Henkens, K. (2014). Involuntaryretirement, bridge employment, and satisfaction with life: A longitudinalinvestigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(4), 575–591.https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1914 Fischer, R. (2017). Personality, values, culture: Anevolutionary approach. Cambridge University Press.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316091944 Hogan, J., & Hogan, R. (1996). Motives, Values,Preferences Inventory (MVPI). PsycTESTS. https://doi.org/10.1037/t03372-000 Hogan, R., Hogan, J., & Roberts, B. W. (1996).Personality measurement and employment decisions. American Psychologist, 51(5),469–477. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.51.5.469 Hogan Assessment Systems. (2020). Summary technicalinformation for validity and norm groups: HPI, HDS, and MVPI.https://www.hoganassessments.com Kim, J. E., & Moen, P. (2002). Retirement transitions,gender, and psychological wellbeing: A life-course, ecological model. Journalof Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B(3), P212–P222.https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/57.3.P212 Leung, C. S. Y., & Earl, J. K. (2012). Retirementresources inventory: Construction, factor structure and psychometricproperties. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 81(2), 171–182.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2012.06.005 Löckenhoff, C. E., Terracciano, A.,& Costa, P. T. (2009). Five-factor model personality traits and theretirement transition: Longitudinal and cross-sectional associations. Psychology and Aging, 24(3), 722–728.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015121 Roberts, B. W., Walton, K. E., & Viechtbauer, W. (2006).Patterns of mean-level change in personality traits across the life course: Ameta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 132(1),1–25. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.1.1 Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content andstructure of values: Theory and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65).Academic Press. Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An overview of the Schwartz theory ofbasic values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1).https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116 Topa, G., Moriano, J. A., Depolo, M., Alcover, C. M., &Morales, J. F. (2018). Personality and perceived retirement adjustment: Amultilevel meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 104, 293–316.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.11.009

  4. Sep 11

    Episode 8: Who is in Your Constellation

    This episode's central metaphor—that identity in retirement is not a single trait but a layered "constellation" built from foundational, active, synthesis, and aspirational group memberships—rests on well-established ground in values and personality research. The claim that culture is absorbed rather than chosen, and that it shapes an internalized "inner critic" about what a respectable exit looks like, aligns with Schwartz's cross-cultural framework on how values are structured and transmitted (Schwartz, 1992; Schwartz, 2012) and with Fischer's (2017) account of personality, values, and culture co-evolving across a person's life. The episode's warning that imagined future identities (the "aspirational" layer) may clash with a person's actual temperament—e.g., an efficiency-driven executive struggling with an unhurried travel life or a slow-paced nonprofit board—is well supported by findings that personality traits (particularly conscientiousness and openness) shape how satisfying a given retirement lifestyle actually turns out to be (Löckenhoff, Terracciano, & Costa, 2009; Topa, Moriano, Depolo, Alcover, & Morales, 2018), and by evidence that retirement adjustment is not just an individual choice but a socially and structurally embedded transition shaped by gender, career stage, and life-course context (Kim & Moen, 2002). The exercise at the end, inviting listeners to separate "authentic self" from "internalized group voice," also echoes Roberts, Walton, and Viechtbauer's (2006) work showing that personality itself continues to shift across adulthood, meaning the "who I am now" question the episode poses is empirically, not just rhetorically, a moving target.

  5. Sep 4

    EPISODE 7: Is Your Plane Landing or Taking Off?

    Episode SummaryAre you retiring toward something, or away from something? In this episode, we unpack why "I'm ready to retire" is really two separate questions hiding inside one — and why most retirement planning only ever asks one of them.Question one: your relationship to time. Are you future-oriented, present-oriented, or past-oriented? Future-oriented women plan and save well, but the same forward-leaning wiring that built a career can make it nearly impossible to ever say "I've arrived." Present-oriented women may embrace retirement's freedom more easily, but risk being financially underprepared. Past-oriented women often feel the future is out of their hands — and tend to arrive at this transition the least prepared and the most anxious.Question two: your core motivation. Are you being pulled toward retirement (relationships, creative work, freedom you've designed) or pushed out (burnout, being sidelined, ageism)? The research is clear: people who feel pulled report meaningfully higher long-term satisfaction, while people who feel pushed often experience retirement as something that happened to them rather than something they authored.Most retirements are a mix of both — and the goal isn't to eliminate the "push" side (including anger, which is simply information, not something to feel guilty about) but to name it honestly before walking into the next chapter.Reflect On ThisFinish the sentence, just for yourself:"I am partly running from ____, and partly running toward ____."Coming Up NextNext episode goes one layer deeper — into the cultures that shaped you, and why the voice in your head defining a "dignified exit" might not actually be yours.ReferencesCarstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54(3), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.165Dingemans, E., & Henkens, K. (2014). Involuntary retirement, bridge employment, and satisfaction with life: A longitudinal investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(4), 575–591. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1914Kim, J. E., & Moen, P. (2002). Retirement transitions, gender, and psychological wellbeing: A life-course, ecological model. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B(3), P212–P222. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/57.3.P212Topa, G., Moriano, J. A., Depolo, M., Alcover, C. M., & Morales, J. F. (2018). Personality and perceived retirement adjustment: A multilevel meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 104, 293–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2017.11.009Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. N. (1999). Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1271–1288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271

  6. Aug 28

    EPISODE 6: What remains — when you are ready to let go of the role

    Episode Summary When the executive title comes off, where does your voice go? This episode shifts the focus inward, moving past the external cultural narratives of women leaving power to examine the internal architecture you take with you. We explore howtraits like high conscientiousness drive career success but can create a surprisingly sharp adjustment in retirement, especially for women. Featuring contrasting real-world exit perspectives from Indra Nooyi and Jacinda Ardern,this episode invites you to examine which work habits and assumptions you are carrying into your next chapter. Key Sources & Further Reading Nooyi, I. K. (2021). My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future. Portfolio. Ardern, J. (2023) Statement Announcing Resignation as Prime Minister of New Zealand. New Zealand Government. Hogan, R. Hogan, J. & Roberts, B.W. (1996). Personality measurement and employment decisions. American Psychologist, 51(5), 469–477. Kim, J.E. & Moen, P. (2002). Retirement Transitions, Gender and Psychological Wellbeing. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B(3), P212–P222. Löckenhoff, C.E., Terracciano, A., & Costa, P. T. (2009). Five-factor model personality traits and the retirement transition: Longitudinal and cross-sectionalassociations. Psychology and Aging, 24(3), 722–728. Topa, G., Moriano, J. A., Depolo, M., Alcover, C. M., & Morales, J. F. (2018). Personality and perceived retirement adjustment: A multilevel meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 104, 293–316. Reflection Question for This Week What part of how I am at work do I assume will just come with me into retirement? And is that assumption actually true?

  7. Aug 21

    Fiction, film and the stories we don't tell

    Show notes: In this episode of Auditing the Future of Coaching, we turn to fiction, film, and television to ask what popular stories reveal and conceal about women leaders leaving power. Through novels, memoirs, films, andseries, the episode explores the inner experience of retirement as more than a financial or career transition: it is an identity shift shaped by role, visibility, ambition, duty, grief, and the search for where one’s voice belongs next. References Books ·      Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner ·       All Fours by Miranda July ·       Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk ·       Exit Interview by Kristi Coulter ·       Untamed by Glennon Doyle ·       Becoming by Michelle Obama Films ·      Tár ·       The Last Showgirl Series ·      The Crown, Season 6 ·       Hacks ·       Succession

  8. Aug 14

    Auditing the Future of Coaching — Season 2, Episode 4 : What the Research Shows

    In this episode of Auditing the Future of Coaching,we examine what academic research reveals about women leaders navigating retirement, especially the hidden identity disruption that can sit beneath a seemingly smooth transition. Drawing on studies of meaning-making, professionalidentity, career pathways, relational loss, organizational conditioning, and continued work after traditional retirement age, the episode explores why retirement for high-achieving women is not simply an ending but an active process of renegotiating purpose, relationships, contribution, and self-understanding. References • Borrero, L., & Kruger, T. M. (2015). The nature and meaning of identity in retired professional women. Journal of Women & Aging, 27(4), 279–298. • Duberley, J., & Carmichael, F. (2016). Career pathways into retirement in the UK: Linking older women's pasts to the present. Work, Employment and Society, 30(4), 582–599. • Price, C. A. (2000). Women and retirement: Relinquishing professional identity. Journal of Aging Studies, 14(1), 81–101. • Semyonov-Tal, K., et al. (2025). Working past traditional retirement age: Identity, purpose, and continuity among highly educated women. Journal of Aging & Social Policy. • Wood, R. E., & Pachana, N. A. (2025). The role of meaning in the retirement transition: A scoping review. The Gerontologist, 65(1).

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I am a veteran coach, deeply invested in the profession's agile evolution. Now, AI coaching chatbots are here, and I am not scared—I'm curious. My burning question: How are they trained? I want transparency into AI models to ensure safety and effectiveness. In this pivotal moment, driven by Large Language Models, I hope to spark vital discussions within the workplace coaching community. This will be a weekly podcast. The first season will focus on the future of coaching theory.

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