Is happiness overrated? 

Martin Seligman thinks so, which is an odd position for the founder of the positive psychology movement. John Tierney, writing in The New York Times about Seligman's new views, says that, as president of the American Psychological Association in the late 1990s, Seligman criticized his colleagues for focusing relentlessly on mental illness and prodded them to study life's joys. He wrote a best seller in 2002 titled Authentic Happiness.

But as the investigation of happiness continued, Dr. Seligman began seeing certain limitations of the concept. It isn't really happiness that people are seeking, it is a sense of accomplishment. The feeling of accomplishment contributes to what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, which roughly translates to "well-being" or "flourishing," a concept that Dr. Seligman has borrowed for the title of his new book, Flourish. He has also created his own acronym, PERMA, for what he defines as the five crucial elements of well-being, each pursued for its own sake: positive emotion, engagement ("flow" or the feeling of being lost in a task), relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.

"Well-being cannot exist just in your own head," he writes. "Well-being is a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning in your life, good relationships, and a sense of accomplishment."

Some amount of conflict in the workplace is inevitable. But so many managers are conflict-averse that they choose to avoid it.  Suppressed frustration takes its toll, says Alice Waagen at WorkforceLearning.com. A culture of conflict-avoidance creates organizations that muddle along with an entrenched status quo.

You can break the cycle, she says, by choosing your battles wisely, letting go of those that are of little value, and finding a middle ground when appropriate. She suggests a series of management practices that use conflict and disagreement.

The news these days is full of stories of powerful men - in government, in business, in sports - behaving badly, abusing their power.

Virgil Ryan, writing in Amplify, says that psychologists refer to this as the paradox of power. "The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and outgoing, they become impulsive, reckless and rude."  

According to psychologists, one of the main problems with authority is that it makes us less sympathetic to the concerns and emotions of others. For instance, several studies have found that people in positions of authority are more likely to rely on stereotypes and generalizations when judging other people.

The New York Times' "Corner Office" column, conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant, recently featured Dominic Orr, president and CEO of Aruba Networks, a wireless networking company.   

Orr was asked how his leadership style has evolved over time, and he answered: "The big thing that has changed from 25 years ago is how much I think about the power of the team.  I used to look for two things in people: one is whether I clicked with somebody, and then I would look for best-in-class competence in a certain discipline, regardless of how they work with others. Now, whenever I'm interviewing for a new executive in any discipline, I look at how they might enhance the capability of the team."

When asked what else he looks for when he's interviewing, Orr said, "Fundamentally, I believe people work for three things:

• People work for impact - for the company or the industry or humankind.
•  They want to have fun.
• And they want to get rewarded. People get rewarded in different ways - through financial compensation or intrinsic rewards. [See the article on intrinsic rewards in our May issue.] 

"So, ultimately, I try to gauge how the people I'm interviewing are operating on those three dimensions, and I judge whether this environment would be a good fit for them."

More on the Orr interview. 

Accustomed to hearing about budget cuts and layoffs, employees at every level are becoming risk-averse. Robert Goldfarb, writing in The New York Times, calls it "trickle-down anxiety."  He says that dedicated, ambitious workers are becoming so afraid of making a mistake that they feel it's safer for their careers to avoid innovation and initiative. Managers need to realize that this paralysis threatens their companies' health, Goldfarb warns.

Corporate mission statements may encourage innovation and entrepreneurial boldness. But these days, uneasy employees are far more attentive to small cues from their immediate supervisors.

"Caution bred at the top is contagious, and it's been drawing oxygen from the workplace," writes Goldfarb. If the economy is to rebound, it will require a burst of confidence in employees who are now more cautious than creative, more tentative than decisive. That confidence needs to come from their managers, and the managers of those managers, all the way up to the chief executive.

Due to modern technologies and economic pressures, the number of executive and/or administrative assistants has dwindled in most corporations. That's unfortunate, because effective assistants can make enormous contributions to productivity at all levels of the organization.

Melba Duncan, blogging for the Harvard Business Review, claims that granting middle managers access to an assistant - or shared resources - can give a quick boost to productivity even at lean, well-run companies. Firms should also think about the broader developmental benefits of providing assistants for up-and-coming managers, she notes. An experienced assistant can be particularly helpful if the manager is a new hire.

Two critical factors determine how well a manager makes use of an assistant. The first is the executive's willingness to delegate pieces of his or her workload to the assistant. The second is the assistant's willingness to stretch beyond his or her comfort zone to assume new responsibilities.