Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
05 November 2021
Updated: 13 May 2021
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This #CloreSocialFellowFriday, we sat down with Kylie Havelock, a 2020 Clore Social Emerging Leader Fellow. We talked about career transition, authentic leadership, and her work as the Head of Product at Citizens Advice.
Can you give us a little bit of background information about your role and some of the projects you’re working on?
I’m the Head of Product at Citizens Advice, which is a senior digital leadership role. Like many third sector organisations, we’re modernising our services to match people’s expectations in the internet-era. Citizens Advice was established over 80 years ago, and until 10 years ago most people would come to get advice in person or over the phone. But, with the advent of the Internet, people are now able to access the information they need directly through online channels. So, my job is to support that transition and make sure that we're investing efficiently and strategically in digital transformation. When I started in my role two years ago, we were in a real growth phase. Since then, I've been supporting lots of product and platform teams to deliver new services, replace old services, and really start to embed digital in the organisation as a whole.
Because of the services that we provide, we’re an organisation that always becomes more critical during periods of national crises, and COVID is no exception. During the past year, it has been a huge endeavor to keep pace with the rapidly evolving pandemic; creating and updating our content in line with changes in government policy and the latest advice. We’re also constantly checking for the changing issues that people are facing. For example, this year there has been a huge uplift in the number of people applying for Universal Credit or enquiring about their employment rights due to furlough or redundancy. The data that we gather through our frontline adviser-led services and our website reflect the trends of what's going on in society at any given time. Through this process, we’re trying to make sure that the technology enables us to reach people where they are - particularly underrepresented groups. The work that my teams are doing isn’t just about the website or administrative systems, it’s about fundamentally enabling the processes that connect people with the help that they need.
Can you share a little bit about your career trajectory, and how you transitioned into the sector?
I moved into the charity sector when I joined Citizens Advice two years ago. Before that shift, I had worked in various government roles in the U.K and Canada, and while I loved working in the public sector, I felt further away from the front line than I wanted to be. When you're in a big central or federal government department, you can feel many steps removed from the day to day reality of the people you’re serving. However, I also knew that I wanted to retain a role that had a big reach, which is why I started to search for a job in the charity sector that operates on a national scale. I was really fortunate to find a position at Citizens Advice which helps millions of people every year through face to face, phone, webchat, and online services.
At the time, I was really keen to build a network of colleagues, friends and acquaintances in the sector, and went in search of a community. That’s how I came across Clore Social and the Emerging Leader Programme, which was an opportunity to grow my leadership experience and learn from others.
Since graduating from your Clore Social Fellowship in 2020, which elements of the course have stuck with you the most?
The first thing that comes to mind is the ongoing support and sense of community that I get from my cohort. We’re still in touch regularly, and it's been such a joy to get to know that group of people who I admire greatly. Even if it’s just having a phone call to have a chat about something, it can be so useful to speak to someone who’s outside of your organisation and has a new perspective.
The second thing has been seeing how much of a turning point the course has been for people in terms of setting goals and seeing them through. So many of my cohort have progressed within their organisations or gone on to new roles, and it’s been really impressive to see. On the day that we graduated from the programme, I set myself the goal to become a trustee of another charity so I could lend my time and experience to helping people in a different way. Since then, I've achieved that, and I got a lot of support from my cohort along the way. I don’t think it would have happened without them.
Can you tell us a little more about your trustee position and what that experience has been like?
After I set that goal for myself, I attended a free webinar hosted by Getting On Board, which encourages young and underrepresented groups to become trustees. That gave me the tools to start looking for a role that matched my skills and values. I eventually joined the board of Local Welcome whose mission is to design global digital infrastructure and shared rituals for community leaders. Initially, this translated to helping refugees feel part of a community by getting a group of people together to cook and eat meals together. During the pandemic, they haven’t been able to host meals in person, but they’ve been able to pivot towards some other initiatives that foster community and are locally based. That sense of place has become so important, especially during the pandemic. I think that the past year has made a lot of people, myself included, realise how disconnected we have become as a society from where we live. The team at Local Welcome have blogged about their inclusive trustee recruitment process, which was a pleasure to be part of and I’d recommend as an example for other charities to learn from.
One of the themes we’re focusing on this year at Clore Social is authentic leadership. Would you be able to share some reflections on authentic leadership and what it means to you?
Authentic leadership is incredibly important. I've been very fortunate, especially in recent years, to work for organisations that I've felt comfortable to be myself at work. Around the same that the time that I moved from the private sector to the public sector, I began to be public about being gay at work, which I’ve embraced as a really formative experience and have been part of many brilliant LGBT networks. Citizens Advice is probably the most inclusive place I've ever worked, which aligns with our mission and is also reflected in the people who come to work with us. Our new Chief Executive is an excellent role model for the kind of empathetic, authentic leadership that I would like to emulate myself.
Since the Emerging Leader Programme, I’ve also been more open about my leadership style with my team. In the past, that type of communication could make me feel vulnerable, but I’ve learned from the people I lead that being explicit about my core values and what’s important to me is a more authentic way to lead.
You can find Kylie on Twitter @kyliehavelock and on LinkedIn.
You can find Citizens Advice on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
You can find Local Welcome on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
If you would like to be featured for a #CloreSocialFellowFriday, send us an email at info@cloresocialleadership.org.uk.
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