I think the answer to the question is yes and that it may not be to hard to prove, but my biggest interest, is for the matrices that are both cycle matrix and up-tridiagonal with $1$ on the diagonal. If $M$ is such a matrix, and if $\mathcal L(M)$ is also up-tridiagonal, I will call it is an an almost ordered matrice. And the reason for this is that characteristic matrix of partial ordered relation are, up to a fine indexation of the partial ordered set, almost ordered matrix. Meaning that for any "order matrix" $M$, you can find $P$ permutation matrix such that $P^t.M.P$ is an almost order. And there is more : for any permutation matrix $P$ and $Q$, we can say that $\mathcal L(P.M.Q) $ is a tridiagonal matrix, it is quite easy to see, but I find this quite nice anyway... There is already plenty of questions that are coming to me and I will ask some specifics ones in other topics. Just to give an example : if you remove elements of a partial ordered "cycle indexed" set, then you trivially get a partial ordered set, but it is quite amazing to constate that the induced indexation is still a cycle-indexation ! [edit : this is only true fore some éléments of the ordered set, like the one with top index :maybe it is true in a lattice if the removed element is a meet-irreducible... but I've got to check, however characterizing these elements that when you remove them, you still get a cycle, seems interesting)] this is far from being true for general matrices/relations!) I also suspect that this very simple $\mathcal L$ could have applications to lattices and to graph theory (cycle matrix of symmetric matrix is not always symmetric "but" ...?...), complexity (how many cycle indexation compare to $(n!)^2$...) and also other areas (arithmetic progression seem concerned too...), but before going into this work, and in order to get a direction and an evaluation of the application and the "meaning" of this "almost transitivity" that would have an anti-symmetric and reflexive relation that would not be a "partial" but an "almost order", I'm going to ask a question that is a bit general :