(FORTUNE Magazine) – Among the adjectives routinely used to describe executives, ''happy'' barely places at all. ''Hard charging'' or ''aggressive'' probably leads the list; ''happy'' languishes somewhere near the bottom, in the neighborhood of ''poetic'' and ''sensual.'' Most students of business simply don't think of managerial types in that light. Edward Bowman, the Reginald H. Jones Professor of Corporate Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, interviewed 30 chief executives for a research project on their concerns and problems. He talked with them about a lot of things, he says, but ''whether they were happy or not just didn't surface in our interviews.'' He adds, ''It never occurred to me that they were happy or unhappy people. It seems irrelevant.'' Somehow, being happy seems incompatible with the fire in the belly that is supposedly standard equipment for any self-respecting executive. Daniel J. Isenberg, a professor at the Harvard Business School, neatly sums up the paradox: ''Happiness, in a way, is a lack of striving -- you're there. But what then is happiness to someone who enjoys the striving itself?'' More managers than you might suspect have found an answer to the question. Asked to name the happiest businessmen and businesswomen they know, executive recruiters and psychologists who consult for corporations first scratch their heads at the weirdness of the question, then quickly reel off a respectable list. Subsequent conversations with the people they name indicate that while some are loath to talk about it -- particularly those at big companies -- yes, the nominees are in fact happy. Moreover, in their accounts of why they are that way, a fairly standard pattern emerges. As the fortunate ones themselves insist, the subject calls for a bit of definition at the outset. Their first question was typically, ''What do you mean by 'happy'?'' They certainly don't claim to be constantly elated. On happiness as something akin to euphoria, Sigmund Freud probably put it best: ''What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree, and it is from its nature only possible as an episodic phenomenon.'' What does seem possible as more than an episodic phenomenon is a generous measure of contentment with one's lot, a feeling of being generally pleased with how life is going and, truth to tell, pleased with oneself. Perspicacious observers of the happiest executives sometimes say of an individual example that he seems serene. Not that he, or she, isn't also more or less constantly in motion. The happiest executives work hard and are happy in their work. Stanley Peterfreund, the avowedly happy owner of his own human resources consulting firm in Closter, New Jersey, echoes a sentiment common among this crew: ''I've been fortunate for most of my working life to be doing exactly what I've wanted to be doing.'' Specifically, these contented managers delight in three aspects of their work: the challenge it affords them, the clout inherent in their jobs, and the autonomy they have achieved. In describing their work as a challenge, and most use just that word, these lucky folks typically weave together four separate threads. As Harvard's Isenberg notes, they view the issues that they wrestle with as complex, meaty, and full of significance. Though they're not quick to say so, they feel that the skills they bring to bear are unique, or at least distinctive. While new assignments may stretch them beyond what they've done before, they still sense that they are masters of the work they do. No matter how high the occasional flood rises, their heads remain above water. And they manage to stay curious about, interested in, even enraptured by their field of endeavor. Ronald Gallatin, a managing director of Shearson Lehman Brothers, says of his encounter with the daily grind, ''I'm excited to come in and excited during the day.'' They have fun on the job. Larry L. Cummings, a professor of organizational behavior at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, has been looking to uncover the traits that distinguish what he calls high-energy, high-contentment executives from their less ebullient brethren. Happy managers, he finds, ''have the ability to take a playful attitude toward their work and themselves.'' They can keep at bay those carping, censorious adult voices built into each of us, the ones that whisper, ''You can't do that'' or ''It will never fly.'' AT ITS SIMPLEST, the clout that happy executives exercise consists of being able to demonstrably affect matters for the better. Or at least so it seems to them. ''What I do is improve things,'' says James Balloun, the partner in charge of the Atlanta office of the McKinsey consulting firm. In describing the beneficent effect they have, happy executives most frequently talk about people: customers helped, partners rewarded, subordinates encouraged and developed. Their efforts shouldn't be construed as purely altruistic, however. Happy executives are compensated well, and not just financially. Most would probably agree with Harvey Wertheim, a managing director of Harvest Ventures, a New York City venture capital outfit, who says, ''Money doesn't matter a lot.'' Clearly they attach large importance to the recognition, and respect, of people who see them in action. A happy executive typically runs his own show. He may own the business or serve as a partner in a firm. If he works in a large organization, he may not be chief executive, but he probably has carved out a territory in which he can act as if he were. Gallatin of Shearson Lehman Brothers makes the point nicely: ''Once you reach a certain level, the key thing is to do what you do best without interference.'' As Richard Boyatzis, president of the Boston consulting firm McBer & Co., observes, it helps that in a senior executive position ''you can pretty much design your own job,'' applying yourself to what interests you most, delegating the rest. If there's a boss lurking somewhere in the picture, you would rarely know it from talking with contented executives. When it comes to describing how the happy honcho's work fits into the rest of his life, the experts repeatedly use the word balance. Management psychologist Harry Levinson, harking back to research done years ago at the Menninger ! Foundation, points out that the folks with the best mental health have ''a wide variety of sources of gratification -- they take pleasure in many different things.'' For the happy executive, sources of gratification beyond work typically include a spouse almost invariably described as terrific, children much doted upon, some fairly vigorous sport or avocation taken seriously, and in certain cases civic or charitable activities. The spouse, may it be noted, usually has talents and interests of his or her own. If you need a quick and dirty test to tell whether a given hard-working executive is reasonably happy, Roderick Gilkey, a clinical psychologist and professor of management at the Emory University business school in Atlanta, proposes two touchstone questions: Does he take interesting vacations, from which he returns refreshed? And does he sponsor his children, to use Gilkey's term, encouraging their efforts but not setting punishingly high standards for them? In the ranks of the happiest executives you will not find many workaholics, though you can get a good argument going on this point. The majority view holds that the workaholic's behavior is driven in a way that the contented manager's is not: it is compensatory, a more or less desperate effort to make up for something the victim feels is missing in himself or in his life. Executive recruiters say that such behavior doesn't often lead to the elevated positions that happier managers seem able to achieve. Says Barry Nathanson, president of the Richards Consultants headhunting firm in New York, ''I've dealt with chief executives who look down on a guy because he's a workaholic. They get tired of seeing his gray face all the time.'' The minority view, on the other hand, holds that many workaholics are both happy and successful. They love their work, this line of reasoning goes, and apply themselves to it to the exclusion of just about everything else. Good news for the company that employs them, bad news for spouse, children, or people who have to work for them. FINALLY, there is in the makeup of the happiest executives a trait that might variously be ascribed to temperament, hard-won wisdom, or a successful upbringing. These men and women seem able to recognize themselves for what they are, and to accept what they see. Because they take a tolerant attitude toward themselves, they can accept others and work with them easily. All this gives the happiest executives a leg up in dealing with stressful situations, whether brought on by their own mistakes or the mistakes of others. They'll make a benign or self-deprecating joke, and then get on with the work at hand. When it comes to the occasional mischances that can befall any business, ''The two words I use most are 'It's over,' '' says Stew Leonard, chairman of Stew Leonard's Dairy, a Norwalk, Connecticut, food emporium celebrated in a television documentary based on the book In Search of Excellence. Leonard doesn't just sit on his considerable executive happiness; he consciously employs it in managing his 500 or so employees. ''When I feel bad or frustrated,'' he says, ''I stay away from people, because it's very contagious.'' Ah, but when he's feeling good . . . ''Happiness is like perfume,'' Leonard proclaims. ''If you wear it, you share it with everyone around you.''