Complete the sentences with the words from the box

speak truth to power · stake his reputation on · executive whim · toe the line · reality check · yes-man · principled stand · fall on your sword · talk someone down · temper expectations · dig in their heels · unpopular opinion

• During the board meeting in Boston, Mark had to ____ regarding the flawed cloud infrastructure.
• Sarah took a ____ and refused to deploy the insecure code to production in Chicago.
• When management demanded an unrealistic release date, the engineers decided to ____ .
• Presenting an ____ about system scalability to the CEO requires immense professional courage.
• David was hesitant to ____ an untested machine learning model in San Francisco.
• Instead of trying to ____ for the outage in London, let us review the logs together.
• Junior developers often feel pressured to ____ rather than question architectural decisions.
• The executive team does not need a ____ who agrees with every risky pivot proposed in New York.
• Engineering roadmaps should be driven by data rather than sudden ____ from the top.
• It is crucial to ____ before presenting the new feature set to clients in Seattle.
• The sudden server crash served as a harsh ____ for our ambitious expansion plans.
• Alex tried to ____ from resigning after the stressful release cycle in Austin.

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