After making a preliminary final in 2015, the Roos will head into the new season with a leadership group comprising Swallow, Ziebell, Jamie Macmillan, Scott Thompson and Shaun Higgins. Ziebell had shared the deputy role with veteran forward Drew Petrie in recent years.

North coach Brad Scott said the club had gone through an "extensive and exhaustive" player-driven selection process.

"It was a close call," Scott acknowledged. "There were a lot of factors that came into the decision and the players have probably been the loudest voice in this and in the end it was fairly clear, but that doesn't mean it was easy. There are a lot of factors that make up leadership and what we were after."

Scott said former members of the leadership group Nick Dal Santo and Drew Petrie had voluntarily decided to take different roles this season, with Dal Santo helping younger players and Petrie focusing on developing the key forwards.

"We all know that it is depth of leadership that is important and it's not just left to any one person and we think we have great depth, but we also think we have good sucession."

"It was extensive (process) and it was thorough, but it is just as much about educating our players about what leadership is. I think in a lot of team sports, leadership particularly when it is just purely a vote can be a popularity contest it can be who is the best player ... the process involved educating our players as to what we think leadership is and what we believe are the attributes required to be a leader."

Swallow said he was pleased his teammates still had confidence in him. "I spoke to Brad in the off-season and we had a good chat about what my plans were and what I wanted to do, and I said I'm very happy, I'd like to go on one more, but at the end of the day the club is bigger than me," he said.

"Boomer (Harvey) did it before I was here where he handed over while he was still playing and that is my intention."

"The way Jack has developed, especially over the past 12 months, has been outstanding ... we've got a lot of good guys waiting in the wings."

Ziebell said it was a great honour to be a stand alone vice captain, and said Petrie was happy to stand back.

"Drew just said you're a big boy now you can handle it."

Despite a strong finish last season, Scott acknowledged that North Melbourne had endured poor starts to the in recent years and he hoped this would not be a factor in 2016.

"We probably sat here in early February last year scrambling trying to get our list together. We were very thankful the world cup cricket gave us an extra two weeks to prepare because we would have been in even bigger strife had that not been the case. So we've worked really diligently with the playing group in the off-season .. and the proof will be in the pudding.

"We've changed a few things up in terms of the way we've prepared and the players have embraced that really well.  Whilst, yes, the start is important, it's an old cliche that each game is only worth four points, but I can tell you that if you make the finals you want to win the games late rather than win the games early.

"We're not going to go overboard in throwing all our eggs into the start basket only to fade out late in the season, so it's a balancing act we have got to work on."