Gold Coast co-captain Steven May admits he hadn't been ready last season to be an AFL captain, saying the extra responsibility had come as a surprise.
But the defender has been working on his people skills and says he is better prepared for the task under new coach Stuart Dew.
May and key forward Tom Lynch appear certain to retain the co-captaincy in 2018, while Dew will lock in his entire leadership team before Christmas.
It will be another massive task for the pair as they attempt to halt the Suns' sustained run of mediocrity without the services of key pillar Gary Ablett.
May said it was all a bit too much for him last season, but that he was already consciously making improvements to his approach.
"Last year, the captaincy got put on me; it wasn't something I was aiming for; I wasn't sort of ready for it," he said.
"But I learnt a lot last year under Rocket (former coach Rodney Eade) and with Gaz (Ablett).
"The way football's going, it's relationship-based and, if you can learn to give not only negative but positive feedback in the right way, you get a real spike in performance.
"That's something I've been trying to work on."
Lynch agreed they had not struck the right balance last season in their dealings with teammates.
"Last year was a pretty tough year, so we may have focused a little bit too much on the negatives as captains on game day," he said.
Dew is keen to stick with the co-captaincy model, having seen it work successfully during his time as an assistant with Sydney.
"It's a brutal season and it's hard to be up every day of the week," he said.
"To have someone to share that with (is important), but you also need the next group underneath to give more support so they're not carrying the can all the time."
