Hello from the site of Pro Tour Hollywood! I'm gearing up for an exciting weekend, thinking a lot about the tasks assigned to me this weekend. One of my jobs will be L3 interviews, so I've been thinking about what I'll be looking for in our candidates as I watch them on the floor of the PT and in interviews. I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts on the subject with you this weekend. The following list is far from complete, but I hope it gives you something to chew on.

Eight Things That "L3-Level Leadership" Means To Me

1. Setting the tone for work expectations—When I was regularly floor judging at Pro Tour Qualifiers and similar events as a level 1 and level 2 judge, I remember reaching the midafternoon, feet and legs tired, and feeling an intense desire to trade places with the head judge, who seemed to get an awful lot of opportunity to rest his extremities. Now that I'm often in that role myself, I know that being an effective head judge often leaves me more worn out than floor judging, but I'm mindful of the appearance that can go along with good HJ technique (being visible and available). So I think it's important to strive to project a clear work ethic. How do you do that? Look alert. When you're on the floor, lead by example: walk quickly but unhurriedly, make eye contact with players and judges, and don't linger needlessly. There are lots of tasks that can be profitably done off the floor—jobs that are not critical, that are helpful to the event but can easily be set aside if pressing matters come up. Helping your scorekeeper sort result slips, or keeping the judge station tidy, tells your staff and players that you care about the event and you're present. WoW raids... not so much.
2. Setting the tone for self-improvement—It can feel, at times, as though high-level judges are simply extremely talented people who have settled into their ideal role in the program. The amount of experience on display at professional events can be somewhat daunting. It's hard to catch a level 4 judge making an obvious mistake. That's not coincidence, but a critical (and utterly true) message for less experienced judges is that every high-level judge reached their station the same way: with hard work, and by learning from their mistakes. An experienced leader isn't afraid to share their own growth stories, to admit their mistakes, and demonstrate that the road ahead is one that can be surmounted by the likes of mere mortals like us.
3. Being honest with criticism
4. Being honest with praise—I'll cover these together, as they're pretty intimately related. Praise and criticism are a substantial portion of what the DCI is looking for in a judge who advances past L1. The values of each tend to the obvious, but that doesn't make either particularly easy. Sure, it's not hard to compliment a judge who has just worked a long, hard day, but to come up with honest, accurate praise and criticism that illustrates where a judge is at and where they are going is not so simple. And delivering that message (especially the critical part) can be even more difficult. But I think the core value here is honesty. The message we send by telling people the difficult truth is not just: here's what I think you should be working on, but also the Kantian: when you're in my shoes, faced with this difficult message, this is how I hope you'll deliver it. There's almost infinite variation on how this can be done, and it's among the most intimate aspects of personal judge style. It's also one of the most useful skills that you can develop through judging to bring into your everyday life.
5. Standing up for your staff - taking the heat—There are, to my mind, three ways a judge can handle a situation. The judge can do things correctly. The judge can handle things in a way which is simply not correct. Finally, there is a gray area, where a judge handles things in a manner that is less than perfect, but isn't definitely wrong. In any of these situations, players may end up unhappy with the judge, and as head judge, you are likely the person who is going to handle that situation. This is an important test of leadership, as you have several potentially conflicting goals. You'd like to make the player happy, when possible. You want to inspire players to have confidence in your staff. And finally, you want your staff to have confidence in your staff. This is a subject that one could write about at great, great length, but the quick version of my approach is: back up your judges when you can, and deflect criticism to yourself when you can't. You may have to defend actions that you would never have taken, but if the action wasn't wrong, it doesn't require blame. If the action was wrong, your options are more constrained, but you still have to work towards the end goal of convincing the players that the judge is worth listening to down the road. I generally find that the "judge was wrong" situation is a little easier than the "judge wasn't right" situation, but with a little care, they're all good opportunities to show the player that they are in good hands.
6. Standing up for your staff - sharing the spotlight—The happy inversion is that it's important to recognize your staff for what they do. When a tournament goes poorly, I think it is a sign that I haven't done my job well. It's the HJ's role to handle things that are going wrong, and it's hard for them to do so without the HJ having an opportunity to step in and right things. But I don't think a tournament can go well without the staff being the primary cause, because tournaments don't go well unless the detail work (including most of the player-judge interactions) is going well. And that is something that is ultimately out of the HJ's control (I was never more aware of this than at GP Vancouver). It's very important that your judges are aware of that, both so that they can feel good when things do go well, and also so they're aware of the ability they have to make the difference between an okay and a great tournament.
7. "Working with" rather than "Working for"—This might be the least necessary of the items on this list, but as a treehugging, Northwest liberal, it's incredibly important to me. I suspect it's possible to run a prerelease or a Grand Prix in a very top-down, authoritarian way. But would anyone working under you enjoy it? I've been lucky to have, in my professional life, jobs that functioned this way. We're all a team; we each have roles; and if I'm putatively in charge, I'm not going to condescend to think that my knowledge of your job is a strict superset of yours. I try my best to ask, rather than tell, people to do things. I thank them when they've finished. These are simple courtesies, but they establish the atmosphere that I want to work under, and what is more leader-ly than being proactive about fostering a functional work environment?
8. Keeping a sense of perspective—One of the important traits that a strong judge must develop to become a real leader is a clear head about what we're doing. We work at tournaments that can have a lot on the line—round-the-world airfare, large amounts of money, chase Friday Night Magic foils—but it's important to remember that Magic is a game, and our staff, for the most part, are volunteers. I am endlessly proud of the skills that this game develops in players and judges, but mindful of the big picture. We have to find a balance between encouraging people to improve their judging skills and recognizing that, in the end, volunteering at Magic tournaments is only as important as it is self-fulfilling. Well-rounded judges—those who give time to personal relationships, school or work, and other interests—have some natural advantages over the truly single-minded.

That's all for this week. Please feel free to flag me down and say hello this weekend, if you're in Hollywood. I'll be on the main event part of the day today, and coordinating side events until six on Saturday, so I shouldn't be hard to find.

Until next time, keep shufflin'