Baby Boomer executives arent leaving the C-suites and thats setting up a crisis for corporate America

Baby Boomer executives continue to win and keep top jobs in the C-suites – and it’s setting up a possible succession crisis across corporate America. From Boeing to Verizon to Cracker Barrel, boards at major firms have been hiring older and even previously retired chief executives to guide them out of corporate messes.As of June, 42% of sitting CEOs were 60 or older — an “elevated” level versus historical averages, according to research by Cowen Partners that looked at SEC proxy filings across an S&P 500 sample.Meanwhile, a major chunk of white-collar Boomers are grappling with what experts call an “identity crisis” — reluctant to leave for a traditional retirement.

That, along with a lack of timely succession planning, could spark chaos in the workplace in the coming years.“You know when someone passes away and there is zero will and you don’t know where anything is and now everyone is left to pick up the pieces? That is exactly what is happening across corporate America right now,” according to Shawn Cole, president and co-founder of Cowen Partners Executive Search.For years, economists forecasted a “Silver Tsunami” — the prediction that Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 will age out of the workforce in a great wave.But that’s not happening, as the 12-month average labor force participation rate for those 65 and over hit 19.2% – up from the 10% range in the 1980s and around 12% at the turn of the century.John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm, notes that people are living longer and “just in a different place in their 60s and 70s than they used to be,” so the idea of retiring at 65 seems like an arbitrary number.“There’s also a sense that it’s not healthy to stop working, people feel they need that in their lives,” he added.Cole puts it more bluntly: “There’s also a fear that if I stop moving, I might die … because they all know someone who retired and then...