Consigliere

Consigliere (Italian consigliere "counselor", pronounced, roughly kohn-seel-YEHR-eh) is a position within the leadership structure of Sicilian and American Mafia. The word was popularized by Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather (1969), and its film adaptation. In the novel, a consigliere is an adviser or counselor to the boss, with the additional responsibility of representing the boss in important meetings both within the boss's crime family and with other crime families. The consigliere is a close, trusted friend and confidant, the mob's version of an elder statesman. He is devoid of ambition and dispenses disinterested advice. This passive image of the consigliere does not correspond with what little is known of real-life consigliere.

A real-life Mafia consigliere is generally the number three person in a crime family, after the boss and underboss in most cases. The boss, underboss, and consigliere constitute a three-man ruling panel, or "Administration."

When a boss gives orders, he issues them in private either to the consigliere or directly to his caporegimes as part of the insulation between himself and operational acts.