How it works
The Thought Leaderboard ranks LinkedIn posters by the Audacity Index, a composite score from 0 to 100. The Index is calculated from ten measurable behaviors, each scored 0 to 10 by the editor.
The ten metrics
Post velocity 0–10
How often the subject posts on LinkedIn.
0 = silent. 5 = a few per week. 10 = multiple per day, weekends included.
Carriage return artistry 0–10
Average lines per paragraph in a typical post.
0 = standard paragraphs. 5 = mixed style. 10 = one sentence per line.
Hook conformity 0–10
Percentage of posts opening with a recognized hook pattern: “I’ll be honest with you,” “Unpopular opinion:,” “Three things I learned from…,” “I fired my best employee,” and similar.
0 = no recognized hooks. 5 = sometimes. 10 = every post.
Humble-brag density 0–10
Frequency of “honored,” “grateful,” and “blessed” per 100 words.
0 = absent. 5 = occasional. 10 = saturation.
Framework rate 0–10
Number of “N things I learned” or “N types of X” posts per month.
0 = no frameworks. 5 = monthly. 10 = the bulk of output.
Story-to-lesson velocity 0–10
Sentences before the post lands its lesson.
0 = leads with the lesson. 10 = the lesson, if any, is at the end.
Emoji bullet usage 0–10
Frequency of 🔥 ✅ 💡 and similar emoji used as bullet markers.
0 = none. 10 = on every bullet, every post.
Selfie-with rate 0–10
Frequency of posts featuring tagged celebrities or executives.
0 = never tags. 10 = nearly every post.
Repost-of-self rate 0–10
Frequency with which the subject recycles their own previous content.
0 = always fresh. 10 = mostly old hits.
Main character energy 0–10
How thoroughly the feed centers on the poster themselves — the trip, the meal, the moment of reflection, all rendered as content.
0 = never about themselves. 5 = mixes life with the message. 10 = the feed is a personal documentary.
How the score is computed
Each metric is weighted slightly differently. Post velocity, carriage return artistry, hook conformity, and humble-brag density carry the heaviest weights, reflecting their primacy in the form. The weighted sum is normalized to a 0–100 scale.
The Index is computed to one decimal place internally and rounded to whole numbers for public display, in the manner of all serious sports rankings.
Archetypes
Every leader is also assigned one of sixteen archetypes describing their dominant posting style. View the full taxonomy at archetypes.
What we measure
We measure publicly visible LinkedIn posting behavior. We do not scrape; we do not harvest; we do not collect anything that LinkedIn users haven’t already made public.
What we don’t measure
We do not measure the truth of what is posted, its business value, its emotional content, or the personality of the person who posted it. The Audacity Index is about audacity. Audacity is, by editorial definition, behavioral.
Editorial review
Every score is hand-reviewed by the editor. The Audacity Index is not algorithmic. Scoring takes approximately twenty minutes per leader. AI tooling may be used to assist the editor in synthesizing observations from publicly visible posts, but no score is published without editorial review.
Methodology updates
The rubric is reviewed annually. New hook patterns emerge. Old ones fade. The metrics evolve. The audacity does not.
Point-in-time review
Every score reflects the leader’s posting at the time of review. The publication does not operate on a fixed rescoring schedule; rescores are issued at the editor’s discretion or on request from a verified profile owner. New leaders are added as the editor curates them, which can shift rankings — the arrow on each scorecard tracks each leader’s movement since they entered the standings.
The editor welcomes rescore requests from verified profile owners whose current posting has shifted meaningfully since their last review. Sign in at your dashboard to request one.