Fact of life - most people work for someone else. Most people have a boss. If you're lucky, you have a good relationship with a boss who is warm, confident and competent. If you're not lucky, you become tense anytime the boss is nearby. You're probably somewhere in-between these two extremes.

Have you ever thought about taking over your boss's job? Have you experienced a situation that left you feeling you could easily do your boss' job better than the boss?

Welcome to the club. We've all been there. Truth is, being the boss is harder than it looks, for a variety of reasons.

Here's one: there's an old saying - "It's lonely at the top". True. Part of the boss's job is to keep people on track when they start slacking off. Human nature being what it is, there are plenty of people who will relax and slow down a bit when there's no pressure.

When that happens - when, not if - the boss has to keep the pressure on. Pressure to work more, work better, work faster. If you're someone who thrives on pressure, you're in a good place. But more often, extra pressure isn't welcome, and the boss' unhappy task is to apply pressure whether you like it or not. This is not a fast track to popularity.

Middle managers struggle to maintain a balance every day. They're caught between upper management and the staff. Push too hard, workers rebel. Push too soft, upper management isn't happy.

Finding the point of balance between them is further complicated because it's a moving target. If market conditions are good, products or services are selling well, management is happy and not motivated to push too hard. On the flip side, if the competition is running ahead, your company may be playing catch-up and running as fast as it can - lots of pressure.

Then throw the wider employment picture in the mix - in good times, when workers have many job opportunities, the manager's challenge is to hang on to good staff. In hard times, when workers are happy to have a job, any job, a manager can be more demanding.

The balance of power shifts with the market. In tough times, management can impose more rules, be strict about enforcing rules they already have, and be quicker to let go of people who are unable or unwilling to live by those rules.

Working in management does mean having a certain amount of power, and how a manager uses that power reveals a lot of character. Bosses are human, too - they have good and bad days, and they deal with pressure just like everyone else.

But their bad days can affect many people simply because the nature of the job puts them in contact with everyone. One worker in a foul mood can be contained. One manager in a bad mood can make the entire staff grumpy.

Having a reliable, even, steady temperament is a very desirable trait for a manager - and not everyone has it.

Another key ingredient is pattern recognition. Good managers recognize that every worker arrives with a different mix of strengths and weaknesses - honesty, effectiveness, efficiency, consistency, commitment, knowledge, skills, loyalty, intelligence, ability to work well with others, and more.

Every successful effort to build teamwork on the job is a custom project - managers must observe personal behavior patterns, group behavior patterns, recognize trouble spots, analyze processes and make adjustments as needed.

These and other skills are not learned overnight. It takes time, patient study and thought, and most of all, experience - the kind of experience that comes from both screwing up and getting it right.

If you want to move up and you've got what it takes, go for it - just be ready for a challenge.

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