I think Management is a skill like any other. The only difference is that Management skills develop more with experience than by simply reading the PMBOK guide

I think Management is a skill like any other. The only difference is that Management skills develop more with experience than by simply reading the PMBOK guide. I have friends who moved to Management from programming because of their employer's organizational structure, wherein programming could only take you so far. Also, people got into programming to be Managers later. My short answer is that it's moderately difficult. You might need to give up on programming to focus on aspects like People and Schedule management, Negotiations, Connections etc. At the end of the day, Management is about organizing stuff, be it people, time, resources or life.