Tony Hayward, the attractively boyish-looking new head of BP, was quoted in the Financial Timeslast week as saying he has a "leadership style that really listens".

There are three things wrong with these five words. First, if you have to resort to telling people what your leadership style is, you are failing to exhibit any particular style at all. Second, styles don't listen. Third, and most fatally, if you think the biggest part of leading is listening, you are either disingenuous or deluded.

Hayward isn't alone. In fact, listening has become the biggest and most fashionable of all modern leadership fads. Every new leader promises that this is what he is all about. Gordon Brown arrived at Number 10 in June and talked and talked about how much he was listening.

Three times in his speech last Monday, Brown commended himself for how much of it he was doing. "I have listened to and I have heard the British people," he said, bafflingly implying that plain old listening isn't as good as listening plus hearing.

There is nothing wrong with listening per se. In fact, some listening is vital - but it has to be the right sort. If you are prime minister or a chief executive, it is not a good idea to make up policy alone without talking to anyone and, if you do this, as Hayward's predecessor, John Browne, did, you will come unstuck eventually. Had Browne only listened to a couple of people on safety matters, things might have gone differently at that refinery in Texas.

Yet just because some listening is essential, it does not follow that listening is what sorts out successful leaders from the rest. Neither does it mean that leaders should stand up and declare themselves to be good listeners. The reason they make this foolish declaration is that they feel it makes them look the very image of the democratic, approachable, modern leader.

Yet there are five reasons why they should desist:

1. Listening is really easy. Any old fool can do it, so it can't therefore be a key skill for chief executives. In my experience, some of the best listeners are dogs. Sometimes chief executives turn out to be dogs, but that is different.

2. Listening is only the first of four increasingly difficult things leaders do. After they have listened, they must think. Then make a decision. Then implement. The fourth one is always the hardest.

3. To promise mass listening is phoney. Chief executives usually don't have the time or the inclination to do lots of listening.

4. To say that you are listening can sound weak. It suggests that you don't have the foggiest idea of what to do, which isn't a good trait in a leader.

5. It encourages cynicism. It implies that your chief executive will not only listen to you but do what you say. In fact, your chief executive doesn't really want to hear you whining on about why you are so underpaid and (appropriately) doesn't want to listen to you at all.

The very word "listening" encourages people to say some remarkably silly things. Here is what management thinker Peter Senge has to say: "Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in yourself, so you can slow your mind's hearing to your ears' natural speed."

This sounds a little overcomplicated, as do all the varieties of listening that managers get trained in: active listening, empathetic listening and something called deep heart listening. In the US there is an International Listening Leadership Institution which teaches you a 10-step programme on how to be a listening leader.

This, surely, is six steps too many. Here, for nothing, is my four-step guide to listening for leaders. 1. Take anything out of your ears. 2. Dispel as many worrying thoughts from your mind as you can. 3. Try to concentrate on what the other person is saying. 4. Look at the person. This is optional, though advisable, as it makes the other person feel better.

When listening to a distressed staff member, it might be good to look sympathetic and put one's BlackBerry down for a second. That's it. Easy.

What isn't so easy is the next bit, which is about exercising judgment. The good leader needs to know who is worth listening to and when. More important, they need to know if they are being told flattering lies and convenient truths.

I once had a boss who used to hold periodic "listening lunches". Small groups of employees would meet him and were invited to voice their concerns. Some would make sycophantic comments. Others would complain about the air conditioning, cutbacks to expenses, understaffing and so on. Our chief executive would sit there nodding uncomfortably. He listened. Nothing happened, though, except that no one enjoyed the lunches and they were discontinued.

What went wrong here wasn't the listening. It was the judging, the sorting and the doing that were pear-shaped. There is only one good reason for saying "my leadership style is to listen" and that is if you want to belittle your predecessor. As often as not, those who say they believe in listening are saying - in a super-polite way - that the old guy was arrogant, out of touch and nothing like the new one. - (Financial Times service)