Book
publishing September 29, 2026
To Zuri
Leadership That Outlives Us
Every child inherits a name. I wanted my daughter to inherit a standard.
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What Do You Pass On Besides Your Name? Seven questions for preserving the stories, principles, and hard-won lessons that should outlive you.
print edition
Available September 29, 2026.
The Standard Behind the Book
Long before this book existed, there was a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
On February 1, 1960, four young Black students known as the Greensboro Four sat down at a Woolworth’s counter and defied Jim Crow laws that denied them the dignity of being served as equals. Their action helped ignite a national movement for civil rights. That inheritance runs through my family, and through this book.
I wrote To Zuri to carry that standard forward. I wrote it for my daughter, so she would know what she
comes from and what I tried to stand for. I also wrote it for anyone trying to live, lead, and remain whole in a
world that rewards optics over principle. This book is not only about where we came from. It is about what
we must still become.
The Meaning of the Cover
The stool on the cover is not just a design choice. It is a stool from the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four young Black students sat down in 1960 and refused to move. One of them was my cousin, Jibreel Khazan, formerly known as Ezell Blair Jr.
That act of disciplined courage runs through To Zuri. This book is about inheritance: not only what we receive, but what we are asked to carry forward. The cover is a reminder that dignity, coherence, and leadership are not abstractions. They are lived under pressure.
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Read What's Inside
The First Letter
To Zuri, on what you inherit
You are not beginning at the bottom.
You were not handed a shovel and told to dig.
You were given a launch pad, built by hands you will never touch, whose blood runs through yours.
In 2023, when my mother, your grandmother, lay dying of cancer in the hospital, your mom, aunt, and I sorted through her home to settle her affairs. What we found was time, frozen in boxes, closets, and cabinets: childhood report cards, business ledgers documenting how she and your grandfather pulled our family from poverty, yellowed tax forms, baby teeth in ziplock bags, shoes with soles worn thin by tiny feet, and obituaries of many she loved and lost.
But what was missing, was the voice behind these artifacts. The meaning. The “why.”
— Dad
What I hope you Remember
To any leader, on what it costs to stay whole
Integrity is the cost of staying recognizable to yourself.
It is the IRS letter I did not want to open, and the reality I finally chose to face.
It is the dark apartment in North Philly, a shotgun in my hands, and the choice not to become someone I could not come back from.
It is the hot afternoon in my home office when a CEO seat sat on the other side of my silence, and I said what I believed instead.
It is every room I left with less access and more self-respect.
— from Chapter 16, To Zuri
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Endorsements
Tender enough to be read as a father's gift, rigorous enough to be taught.
Stewart D. Friedman, Emeritus Practice Professor of Management, The Wharton School; author, Total Leadership
Leadership & Academic
Most leadership books describe the problem. Baldwin hands you the instrument to solve it.
Executive & Enterprise
He traces the through-line from the Greensboro lunch counter to his own boardroom reckonings.
Inheritance & Legacy
Read more praise
About Julian Blair Baldwin
Julian Blair Baldwin is an author, leadership thinker, and founder of Cohere Leadership Group, an organization built on a simple belief: We have one life, and the values that guide our decisions should remain coherent across the many roles we play. His work names a cost most organizations feel but rarely name: fragmentation, the pressure to become different versions of yourself across roles, rooms, and relationships until trust erodes and execution breaks. He helps leaders live and lead with greater coherence, translating identity and values into grounded, consistent action.
With more than two decades of executive leadership across healthcare and technology, Julian brings both operator credibility and philosophical depth to his work. A graduate of Temple University School of Pharmacy and The Wharton School, Julian is known for turning complexity into clear, practical direction and for speaking to the tension between conviction and the systems that often reward conformity.
Foreword and Afterword
Foreword by
Wayne Nash
Retired SVP, Global Human Resources, Audible Inc.
Afterword by