What is ICF ACC Certification
The Connection Between Literacy and Leadership
We know the link between early literacy and leadership capacity later in life is strong.
In the CCLF 2025 Impact Report, Dr. Alika Lafontaine, an Indigenous physician, former President of the Canadian Medical Association, and CCLF Board Member, explains the connection clearly. Having navigated a learning disability himself as a child and having even been told he would never graduate high school, Dr. Lafontaine spoke from personal experience about the impacts of literacy:
“Being able to read and express yourself through language is a necessary aspect of inclusion and equity,” he said. “If people aren’t literate in the languages they need to navigate education, health, or employment, their ability to advocate for themselves will be limited.”
What Dr. Lafontaine is describing is not basic reading skills. He is describing the foundation of effective communication and the ability to understand, to be understood, and to participate fully in the systems and conversations that shape life. Those also happen to be the foundations of leadership.
The themes we return to regularly in our blogs, newsletters, and social media content (communication as a core leadership skill, coaching as a mechanism for developing others, the importance of creating environments where people feel supported enough to grow) all trace back to something that starts very early.
Children who develop strong early literacy skills enter school with better language processing skills, a broader vocabulary, and stronger foundational cognitive capacitive. According to CCLF, children who are read to daily right from birth perform better in language, literacy, and cognitive assessments when they reach preschool and school age.
There is a direct line between a child who is given access to language and storytelling in their earliest years, and an adult who is capable of communication with clarity, empathy, and confidence. Leadership development programs like The Coaching Academy for Leaders build on that foundation. They cannot build leadership from scratch.
It may be surprising to hear, but Canada currently faces a significant literacy gap. According to the CCLF, one million children under the age of 15 have below-grade-level literacy skills. Children who start school behind are far more likely to remain behind, limiting their opportunities and compounding their inequities over their lifetime. Investing in early literacy is, very clearly, investing in the leadership potential of future generations.
