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It's one thing to take directions from the boss. It's quite another to actually be a boss and to be responsible for giving directions and achieving your company's goals. Welcome to the world of management.

Being a middle manager means finding a way to provide leadership to your team while at the same time putting policy company policy into action. It's a task made all the more challenging by a work environment where change is rapid and quick responses to problems are expected.

But by learning to share duties, develop new skills and focus your energy on the right tasks, you can be effective and successful. "[Balanced managers] know how to delegate operational tasks to others and realise that their primary role is to work "on"' the business rather than "in" the business," says academic and strategy consultant Dr Peter Saul.

Saul says developing a company's strategy is predominantly the role of upper management and the board but middle managers can be called on to play a role too and this can place demands on their time.

He says middle managers may be asked to give input to strategic planning process. For example, their superiors might ask them to identify changes in a particular part of the business or what competitors doing. They might also have to answer questions on opportunities for innovation and greater competitive advantage or about the budget implications of learning and development plans for staff.

"Middle managers will have a strategy development role for their part of the business," Saul says. "They will be asked, for example, 'How can my team best contribute to the overall corporate vision, mission and goals?"'

To play a role in strategy, managers need to develop their skills.

"These skills can be learned by emulating how other strategic managers develop strategy," Saul says. "It's also worthwhile to read widely and to attend relevant courses. But the best way to learn is from experience. I've found that managing your own share portfolio is also a great way of learning to think strategically. The feedback is quantitative and very fast."

One of the biggest hurdles new managers face is balancing the strategic side of their duties with the people management and day-to-day running side. While thinking about the business they must also monitor teams and develop individuals.

Stephen Wood, the director of Success Enterprises Consulting, says finding a balance is critical. "The best managers know that they need to do both," he says. "They find a way to balance the here and now and the longer term - even with the conflicts in time and delivery pressures that may take place."

Wood says managers will find ideas popping into their heads all the time about how their business could be run differently or better. "The trick is to make and then take the time to implement those little ideas as actions in your day-to-day work," he says. "[That way] you are always moving towards the goal."

Another useful part of a middle manager's armoury should be project management skills. These will help set the direction of the business and meet the boss's goals and ambitions.

The first step of project management is to try to define the goals and ambitions of the business owner. If these are unclear you may need to create your own. Wood says, quoting Lewis Carroll: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there."

The second step is to create and critically review alternatives for achieving those goals. "This needs creativity, a touch of entrepreneurial spirit [and] research to reduce the level of risk," Wood says. "[It also requires] analysis skills to consider how each of the different options compare and a willingness to take a bit of a chance and go for it."

Wood says to develop project management skills, managers should develop a capacity to think like the business owner. "In any situation it is possible to ask: What is a good outcome for the whole business here? What does success look like? How could I contribute to that success? How can I minimise the risk of failure?"

New managers must also create and implement strategy in rapidly changing economic conditions. "Strategy must always respond to, and anticipate, external change," Saul says. "If the environment was stable then we would have no need for on-going strategy development. Today's circumstances may only be different to the past in that they require strategy to be more flexible than previously."

In the end, the best advice a manager can have about his or her growing role as a business strategist is from Henry Ford II: "Nobody can guarantee the future. The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them and make our plans with confidence".

Ann-Maree Moodie is a management educator and managing director of the Boardroom Consulting Group.