A consigliere is anyone the Don wants to appoint as consigliere. He can be a stand-alone, meaning that his full time job is to counsel the Don (in which case he gets some of the money kicked upstairs to the Don), or he can have his own regime, and keep it while he advises the Don. In a FBI tape of Gotti, he says to Sammy da Bull: "Do you want to be consigliere or underboss--whatever makes you feel good." Whatever he was, Da Bull continued to pursue his own rackets, which made Gotti jealous.