General Paul Funk, a retired four-star Army general who led the world’s largest international coalition against ISIS, joins Adam Mendler on the Thirty Minute Mentors podcast to share the leadership lessons from 42 years of service, including commanding Army Training and Doctrine Command. Their conversation covers trust, mentorship, coalition leadership, and what it takes to lead people through the highest stakes imaginable. Read the full transcript of Adam’s conversation with General Paul Funk.
Episode Summary
General Paul Funk spent 42 years in the Army, rising to four-star rank and leading a 72-nation international coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria before commanding Army Training and Doctrine Command. The son of a three-star general, Funk met his wife in high school when he was a senior and she was a freshman, both of them Army brats. On this episode of Thirty Minute Mentors, Funk joins Adam Mendler to trace the leadership principles that carried him through more than four decades of service, from small-unit command to leading dozens of allied nations at once.
Funk tells Adam that great teams develop their own language and press each other for excellence, drawing on the book “Legacy,” about New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team, and its principle to leave your jersey in a better place, meaning every leader is responsible to those who came before and those who will come after. He grounds his leadership approach in the Army’s core values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage, and describes the Army’s ability to turn citizens into soldiers in just 10 weeks as proof of how powerful structured, values-based training can be.
Funk distinguishes mentorship, which improves current performance, from sponsorship, which recognizes and develops potential, and tells Adam that trust takes years to build and can be lost in a single moment. He shares a saying from his father, a veteran of Desert Storm: talking ain’t fighting, meaning preparation and readiness matter more than rhetoric. Leading a 72-nation coalition against ISIS required understanding each country’s caveats, or restrictions, and using officers from allied nations as proxies to deliver messages tailored to different populations, since no single voice could speak credibly to every audience.
Funk shares a story about a young nurse who joined the Army after being homeless and living in her car, who went on to build a walking blood bank that assembled 27 liters of blood in about an hour to save a soldier’s life during combat operations, an example he uses to illustrate why people serve beyond whatever reason first brought them in. He tells Adam that leaders must be positively intrusive in the lives of the people they lead, asking real questions and meeting new team members monthly to align them around shared goals and vision, a practice he says saves what he calls man years regardless of whether you’re leading three people or three thousand.
For listeners interested in military leadership, coalition building across cultures, or how trust and mentorship function at the highest levels of command, Funk’s conversation with Adam on Thirty Minute Mentors offers a candid, deeply experienced perspective on leading people through the highest stakes.
What You’ll Learn
- Why Funk draws on the All Blacks rugby team’s principle to “leave your jersey in a better place,” and how it shapes his view of a leader’s responsibility to predecessors and successors alike.
- The distinction Funk draws between mentorship and sponsorship, and why he believes trust takes years to build but can be lost in a single moment.
- How leading a 72-nation coalition against ISIS required understanding each country’s caveats and using allied officers as proxies to reach different populations.
- The story of a formerly homeless nurse who built a walking blood bank, assembling 27 liters of blood in about an hour to save a soldier’s life.
- Why Funk believes leaders must be “positively intrusive” in their people’s lives, meeting new team members monthly to align them around shared goals.
- Funk’s principle that simplicity is the most important, and most frequently overlooked, principle of leadership under pressure.
About General Paul Funk
General Paul Funk is a retired four-star U.S. Army general who served 42 years, including command of a 72-nation international coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and command of Army Training and Doctrine Command. The son of a three-star general, Funk has continued to focus on veteran transition initiatives, including partnering to build military talent pipelines into advanced manufacturing roles. (Note for whoever implements this page: verify Funk’s current post-retirement roles and any board or advisory affiliations via his official public profile before publishing, since military leadership bios can change after retirement.)
Related Episodes
- Episode 116: General Joseph Votel – Votel’s command experience in the same theater of operations offers a direct complement to Funk’s own account of coalition leadership against ISIS.
- Episode 182: General Frank McKenzie – McKenzie’s command experience in the Middle East covers closely related ground on coalition leadership and military strategy.
- Episode 70: General Barry McCaffrey – McCaffrey’s distinguished military career offers a useful parallel on leadership lessons drawn from decades of Army service.
- Episode 18: General Martin Dempsey – Dempsey’s experience leading at the highest levels of the U.S. military echoes Funk’s own reflections on trust, mentorship, and leading through the highest stakes.
Visit the Thirty Minute Mentors podcast homepage for more conversations with military leaders, executives, and changemakers across industries.
If General Paul Funk’s lessons on trust, mentorship, and coalition leadership resonated with you, book Adam Mendler for your next event to bring these same lessons on leadership and organizational trust to your organization.
