New Manchester United assistant manager Steve McClaren intends to identify a group of "cultural architects" to lead the squad under new manager Erik ten Hag.
At his introductory press conference, Ten Hag refused to clarify if Harry Maguire would retain the captaincy next season after a dreadful 2021-22 season that culminated in his demotion in April.
Bruno Fernandes has skippered United on a number of occasions and Cristiano Ronaldo has been touted as a potential captain.
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McClaren would have likely been introduced to the term cultural architect when he was the England assistant coach to Sven-Goran Eriksson in 2002. Willi Railo, a Norwegian sports psychologist Eriksson consulted, singled out David Beckham as a "cultural architect" on the eve of the 2002 World Cup.
McClaren, who is returning to United after 21 years, suggested Ten Hag would settle on a leadership group the squad can look up to as United attempt to recover from a chastening season they ended trophyless and finished sixth in the Premier League.
"Going into Manchester United, straightaway in my mind is who are the cultural architects?" McClaren said on the McClaren Performance podcast. "Who can you build this team around?
"There's not one leader, there's not one captain, there are a few lieutenants and they're all connectors and connected to each other. Some through their status, some through their talent and some through their attitude to make each other better.
"But it's up to everybody - if they are a cultural architect - to make others better."
McClaren, who has managed Middlesbrough the England national team, Twente, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Derby County and Queens Park Rangers since he left United in 2001, also outlined the culture Ten Hag and his staff have to cultivate as United prepare to start pre-season training on Monday.
Citing the book The Culture Code , McClaren explained: "The three main chapters to creating a culture are creating safety. There was one experiment in a book, somebody went into a hospital and wanted to know the mistakes the hospital was making and there were various different teams within the hospital and the best team or who they thought were the best team, came out top with the most mistakes and the others didn't make mistakes, or hardly.
"What they found was because the top team, the top department, was so safe in their environment that they were actually allowed to make mistakes, they were allowed to share them, they were allowed to talk to them, so they divulged every bit of information on the research. Whereas other departments didn't have that safe environment, didn't want to admit they were making mistakes, didn't want to own mistakes, therefore didn't write them down, didn't tell the researchers, so they thought, wow, they didn't make any mistakes.
"But it was the safety of that environment that the department that came up with the most mistakes had the safety to actually make mistakes, admit failure and write them down, share them and move on. So I thought that was so interesting, so right.
"Many times, we've sat in team meetings and we've had a right go at the team and the manager says, 'right, come on then, anything to say?' You've just gone around criticising everybody and that is not a safe environment you can come out.
"That was number one. Number two was vulnerability, sharing vulnerability, that means stories of vulnerability, bad injuries, bad losses, how you were brought up, traumas in your life that you've gone through, admitting that I need help in this.
"And the third thing was purpose: why are we doing this, getting the 'why' is the start of it. Why are you playing at this certain club? That's the why. The more you share that, the higher the purpose becomes and the gelling of the team becomes stronger.
"We're going into Manchester United and having to create that culture, a culture, and that's one of the most fascinating things."
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