I was reminded how hard it is to lead people. From the quote, I managed to conclude that when your members don't trust you anymore, they will choose to shut up and don't bring their problems to you. It is painful for a leader to feel and experience it because he's not an effective leader anymore.
I agree that when you let your members to speak up for themselves, then they have to be accountable for whatever the consequences are. It means you let your people discover, maneuver, and improve through their efforts. I believe they will learn from it, and trust you more.
Such a good blog and topic should be discussed.
If the team do not believe in the leader they will not perform at their best which may mean not coming to him/her with problems, doing substandard work, being lazy or even undermining the leader. Whatever it is, it's counterproductive.
This is the case, certainly, although performance is required still, expected. In a military situation for instance, the learning needs to be done in training and that's why military units train so hard, why it can be so challenging. In combat things are learned, but it usually comes through the unit taking casualties, so it's best to learn ahead of time if possible.
Sorry for my late reply, I've had a busy day at work.