I’m working with an organization that is just a few years old. Their leaders, four of them, are determined to start a culture among their employees. They want a culture.

I applaud them. Good goal. Tough goal. Not an easy goal to know that you’ve reached or continue to reach. But it’s a very worthy thing to pursue that will pay real dividends to those involved.

Culture matters because it helps a group cope with hard times. Culture matters because it serves as a binding tie, a point of identification. Culture matters because it is the unwritten element that circulates among you and your followers, affecting decisions, shaping the perceptions of opportunities, molding attitudes, and a whole lot more. Culture says much about who you and your followers are.

You’re a leader. You’ve got followers. What’s the culture that you and they share?

Last point. One question that I’ll be asking the four leaders of this new-ish organization is this: whose culture is it, anyway? Do you want a culture made from all of the group’s members? Do you want a culture that you as leaders largely define?

Whose culture is it anyway?