Knots badly done by the leader of the Scouts
I believe the answer is:
nodes
'knots' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'badly done by the leader of the scouts' is the wordplay.
'badly' is an anagram indicator.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'the leader of' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'scouts' is 's'.
'done' with letters rearranged gives 'node'.
'node'+'s'='NODES'
(Other definitions for nodes that I've seen before include "Knots" , "Network intersections" , "End so (anag)" , "Bumps or lumps" , "Bulges or swellings" .)