SOMETIMES WHEN I GET a little restless at work, I wonder whether I should try something new and jump into management. It used to be a theoretical question. Now, I've reached the age range, my mid-30s, when moving up is not only a real possibility, but may eventually be expected of me. I've suddenly gone from having a job to having a "career path."

Recently, a few of my longtime friends and colleagues have taken the leap, and through their experiences, I can see much that's appealing about management. My colleagues are developing a whole new set of skills and facing very different challenges in their management jobs, especially where working with people is concerned. I can see them transforming into leaders and strategic thinkers, and taking increasingly important roles in their organizations. (They don't seem to mind the higher pay scale and other perks, either.)

But there's also a flip side. Instead of the tangible success of making one big sale or a great presentation, my managing friends must find their rewards in more abstract ways, such as the performances of others or in the larger success of an enormous enterprise. Becoming a boss seems to simultaneously make you more of a central player and something of a bystander.

Managers also have to toe the corporate line, for better and worse. Doing that can be stressful and even lonely at times, some friends admit.

MOST WORRISOME TO ME is that most managers risk giving up what they went to work to do to in the first place. Some of my friends far prefer managing people to the mundane tasks they handled before. But I entered journalism 12 years ago to become a writer, not to cultivate other writers. Would the personal rewards of managing be greater than the satisfactions of my current job?

For Laura Kelso, moving into management was the right way to go. She was promoted to her first management post after working in various jobs at several large telecommunications companies. "I really felt I was using maybe only 30% to 40% of my abilities in the jobs I was in," she says. "It was definitely time to make a move."

She was able to parlay her new skills into her own business. About a year ago, she co-founded Ubundle.com Inc., an Internet-based telecommunications consulting company in Dallas.

Ms. Kelso, 30 years old, has been acting as chief executive. She says she finds her new role stimulating because of the variety of tasks involved: from hiring employees to meeting with attorneys and giving speeches. Her many responsibilities ensure that her to-do list keeps growing, but she says she thrives on that pressure. "There's always going to be something hanging over your head," she says. "That's what makes for an interesting and fast-paced day."

The hardest part, she says, is handling the responsibility of having people depending on you for their paychecks. The first time she had to fire someone, she spent weeks agonizing over how to do it. But, she says, "I can see myself growing, pushing the limits of what I thought my business skills were."

Ms. Kelso hopes she's now in management to stay. "I tend to gravitate toward being a leader," she says. "In that sense, it's a job that fit with my personality. I've found it extremely engaging in every facet."

Her friend Kelly Cannell had a different experience. Until early 1998, Ms. Cannell was managing a team as the controller at MetaSolv Software Inc., a telecommunications software company in Plano, Texas. Taking the job at first seemed the next logical step in her career.

"I think everyone considers it a forward-looking career move to become a manager," says Ms. Cannell, 35. "That was important to me, because my career has always been important to me. But I wasn't fulfilled personally."

As more people joined her team, Ms. Cannell found herself spending a lot of time on personnel matters, such as writing performance reviews. She didn't enjoy them much, even though she liked her employees, she says.

"People always say managing people is so time-consuming," she says. "I thought, 'What's the big deal?' The big deal is people are human, and they bring their problems to work, and eventually their lives can affect what happens to them at work. To be a good manager, you have to mentor them, listen to their problems, counsel them and at the end of the day you still have your own work on your plate." It didn't help that she had a family at home who also needed more time than she had.

In early 1998, Ms. Cannell went to her boss and inquired about a new job that had fewer management duties. Since then, she has been a financial analyst, charged with working on financial and strategic planning and special projects. She has no direct reports.

"The work is more fulfilling," she says. "It's very project-oriented, individual stuff. I feel like what I do is important and I'm still learning a lot. And I have that flexibility."

Her advice to anyone contemplating management?

"Know it's a lot different from being an individual contributor. Don't take the responsibility lightly, because no matter what you think, managing people is not easy."