Alain Batty et la fabrique des leaders | Atypique HEC Montréal

Alain Batty spent more than three decades at Ford, including three years at the helm of its Canadian subsidiary. From this impressive career within the automotive giant, he retains the feeling of having worked in a multitude of companies, as roles and challenges followed one another constantly. As he climbed the corporate ladder, this tireless worker learned to accept his own shortcomings. The closer he came to the top, the more he recognized his limits—and understood the importance of building high-performance teams he could rely on. “If you don’t develop them as leaders, you end up surrounded by experts who are simply waiting to be told what to do,” explains Batty, who now serves as a judge at the Paris Commercial Court. To the Ford method, Alain Batty added his own sensitivity. With precision and candor, he shares his approach to building what he sees as an ideal organization—one in which people know where they are going and how to get there. And to make expectations clear, he says, it all starts with authenticity. “When you want to become a leader at another level, people need to understand who you really are.” His Atypique? The making of leaders.