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“Why should anyone be led by you?” René Carayol asked the audience at the London Business Forum (LBF). This is a key question, said Carayol, in a world where leadership and culture separate the winners from the losers.

Carayol has unique insight into what makes a successful leader. He has served on the boards of some of the biggest British and American companies, such as Marks & Spencer, Pepsi and IPC Media. On top of that, he has worked with some of the world’s most inspiring leaders, including Bill Clinton.

If there was one thing Carayol wanted his audience to take away with them it was to “manage a little less and lead a little more.” Leadership is about much more than strategy, he insisted, leaders define the culture of a company. Now more than ever, it is the right culture that ensures the competitive advantage: “Culture is so much more powerful than strategy.” Strategy, Carayol explained, can be copied but culture is unique to an organisation.

It wasn’t “I have a strategy” that empowered and inspired Martin Luther King’s audience but “I have a dream,” Carayol noted. Brilliant organisations, he said, get a “15% extra discretionary effort” from their employees because they have succeeded in engaging and connecting with them. “Numbers,” he insisted, “don’t have an emotional connection, leaders do.”

The best leaders, said Carayol, energise people towards their vision. They are the likes of Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. These are not perfect people but they understand what they’re good at and surround themselves with people who “balance out [their] weaknesses”. They are brave enough to hire people who are better than them and empower those they employ to lead too: “Good leaders create followers, great leaders create leaders.”

“What are you great at?” Carayol asked the LBF. The answers to this question are the beginnings of your “leadership code,” he said. The leaders of what Carayol calls the “New Age Academy Businesses” are aware of the importance of collaboration, of doing things “the Apple way.” It’s about understanding that you’re all working to achieve the same goal, “the enemy is outside the organisation, not inside.”

Apple, Google, SABMiller, Southwest Airlines and ASDA are just a few examples of “New Age Academy Businesses.” These businesses, Carayol explained, “celebrate success”, have non-hierarchical structures, are “customer-centric” and they empower their employees. These companies are successful because they have focused on culture; they are personalities not organisations. “You can’t hide from your culture,” Carayol told the LBF.

He concluded with a fantastic video in which a Southwest Airlines steward raps the pre-flight safety announcement. This is a budget airline, explained Carayol, who have had “39 profitable consecutive years.” It is a company whose employees truly represent their culture, they have hired “fantastically talented people that are memorable.” You can view the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvdCFYLf_JI&feature=fvst