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Automatic English For The People

Leaders Make Mistakes Vocabulary Text

Hello, this is AJ, welcome to the vocabulary lesson for "Leaders Make Mistakes."

Let's go to the beginning. They have a phrase "they make no bones about it." Tom

Peters says "Leaders make mistakes and they make no bones about it." So that's a

little idiom there, to make no bones about something. When you say "they make no

bones about it", it means they don't apologize for it or they don't try to hide it. They

don't feel bad about it. That's the meaning of this phrase.

It means you do something and you're not worried about it. You don't apologize for it.

You don't feel bad about it. You don't try to hide it. You feel good. So it says they

make mistakes and they make no bones about it. It means they make mistakes and

they don't feel bad about making the mistakes, they feel good. They make mistakes

and they don't apologize. They don't say "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made a mistake,"

right? They make no bones about it. They do not apologize.

They are direct and honest about it. They don't try to hide it, they don't feel bad about

it and they don't apologize. They make no bones about making mistakes. They don't

apologize for making mistakes. They don't try to hide their mistakes. They don't feel

bad about mistakes. They make no bones about it.

Okay, then a little later he says "In placid times leaders can pretend to have the

answers." Okay, placid. Placid means calm, calm (c-a-l-m), calm. So it means

nothing is changing, right? Everything is calm and slow and relaxed. So during placid

times in the economy, in history, when everything is calm, then the leaders can

pretend they are strong. They can pretend they are perfect. They can pretend they

know everything. So in calm times leaders could, in the past, pretend to know

everything. They could pretend to be perfect.

But he says "In turbulent times leaders must have the best questions, not the best

answers." They can't pretend to know everything. Instead, they have to ask a lot of

questions, always asking questions, asking questions. So that's what happens in

turbulent times, what must happen in turbulent times.

Now turbulent, of course, is the opposite of placid. Turbulent means not calm. It

means rough or changing fast, chaotic, so in chaotic times, in rough, difficult times, in

times when everything is changing quickly, in turbulent times, turbulent. Turbulent is

the opposite of calm, turbulent, not calm.

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