What is the "trust and verify sense"? I've been told this by managers before but I've honestly never understood it. "Trust" to me means "be willing to take action without further examination of the facts at hand". If I trust your code I wouldn't review it. But I don't trust your code, and I don't trust you to have taken all of the appropriate considerations when you were writing it. What's the difference between "trust but verify" and "don't trust, verify"?

Is the phrase "trust but verify" an attempt to avoid damaging self-esteem? There seems to be some emotional/ego-based attachment to the concept of trust.