Compassion Over Silence

What makes a leader truly memorable? After completing the FBI-LEEDA Trilogy, Rashida Saunders reflects on one of the most important lessons she learned, leadership is ultimately about people. Drawing from conversations with community elders, nonprofit founders, public servants, mentors, and leaders who have dedicated their lives to service, she explores what separates influential leaders from thos...

Leading Others Through Trust, Accountability, and Change In Part 2 of this leadership series, Rashida Saunders explores the practical side of leadership and organizational culture. Drawing from lessons learned throughout the FBI-LEEDA Trilogy, she reflects on trust, accountability, employee wellness, ethical decision-making, change management, and the role leaders play in shaping organizational cu...

The People Behind Leadership What makes someone a leader? In Part 1 of this two-part series, Rashida Saunders reflects on completing the FBI-LEEDA Trilogy and the leadership lessons that stayed with her long after the training ended. Drawing from her experiences growing up in Northeast Portland, serving in law enforcement, leading community programs, coaching, motherhood, and personal healing, she...

Some of the heaviest things we carry are the things no one else can see. When people think about law enforcement, they often think about the calls, the crises, and the traumatic events officers witness. But over time, I've learned that some of the greatest weight comes from the memories that follow us home, the grief we rarely acknowledge, and the stories we were never meant to carry alone. In...

What if some of the beliefs that shape our lives were learned long before we could name them? In this episode of  Compassion Over Silence , Rashida Saunders explores the quiet lessons many of us absorb in childhood about strength, self-reliance, emotions, and vulnerability. Drawing from her experiences growing up in Northeast Portland, serving in law enforcement, motherhood, leadership, and healin...

What if being fine isn’t the same thing as being okay? For many of us, strength begins as a necessity. It helps us survive difficult childhoods, demanding careers, grief, trauma, leadership, and the expectations placed on us by others. But what happens when functioning becomes the measure of whether we're okay? In this episode, Rashida Saunders explores the hidden cost of high-functioning survival...

For a long time, strength meant survival. In this episode of  Compassion Over Silence , Rashida Saunders explores what happens when resilience, responsibility, and self-reliance become identity, and the hidden cost of carrying everything quietly. Drawing from her experiences in public safety, leadership, motherhood, and healing, she reflects on emotional suppression, high-functioning survival, hyp...

Welcome to  Compassion Over Silence . Hosted by Rashida Saunders, author of  Permission to Break , public safety leader, speaker, and founder of Black Ember Press, this podcast is a space for honest conversations about leadership, healing, identity, service, and what we carry behind the roles we hold. Through personal stories, reflections, and meaningful conversations,  Compassion Over Silence  ex...