Alexis Monville (en)

The 67 days of the leadership challenge

The compilation of all the LinkedIn posts published over the summer of 2022 with the hashtag #67daysofleadership.

Thank you for your support during the challenge.

My initial idea was to list the names of all people who shared, reacted, and commented on the posts. I realized it was a pretty challenging task – as it continues to move daily, even on old posts – and that it will not bring much value to the reader. You know who you are. Thank you.

At the end of the challenge, Jérôme Bourgeon was the first one to ask if I had reached my goal. The goal I set for myself on Day 1 is to share and learn about leadership daily.

The answer is nuanced.

Yes, I want to continue to learn about leadership every day. The situations I face daily are good opportunities for that. Writing about those is helpful to thinking and consolidating the learnings.

No, I don’t want to have the pressure to share daily.

Furthermore, I had no expectations about the metrics: the number of views, shares, reactions, and comments.

But, it is very addictive.

I learned through the comments a lot. It sparked some fantastic conversations with people I was not expecting to have. So, I wanted more comments so that I could have more of those conversations.

I looked for the validation and support of the reactions. I discovered there were more choices than likes during the challenge (I know, it was probably there in front of me the whole time, and I had ignored it.)

I learned that shares could extend the reach of your message to an entirely different network sparkling new connections.

I was disappointed with the LinkedIn algorithm. Some posts were viewed more than 30,000 times, while others collected just a bit more than 100 views. The algorithm picks winners and losers every minute based on criteria that are still unknown to me. Even my wife, Isabel Monville, who is an executive coach, and could have been interested in them, and would have certainly supported me, was not seeing them. She knows better ways to support me daily than through LinkedIn. Maybe that’s why the algorithm chose not to put my posts on her feed. 

Early engagement on a post, the reaction from the people mentioned, the content itself, keywords, emoticons, pictures, videos, and links are probably factors, and I still don’t understand them.

Even if I try to remind myself that metrics were not the point, sharing and learning were. It still frustrates me a bit.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I feel blessed and grateful for all it brought me. Thank you!

What I intend to do:

  • I continue to write. Writing to think and consolidate learnings.
  • I connect with people. People I already know, people I don’t, so that we discuss and learn together.
  • I share from time to time on my blog or LinkedIn. Sharing to create conversation opportunities.

Let’s talk!

Enjoy your journey!

[edit on Sept 8, 2022]
I woke up this morning with a notification of a new post on LinkedIn from Michael Doyle. He created a cover for the pdf I assembled with all the posts. Thank you, Michael!

Michael also shared the whole process of creating your ebook. Check it out here.