Establishing your presence on pitch is probably the most important skill for a referee - and this includes assistant and snitch referees. I like to think that the confidence I project on pitch makes up for my lack of height, though generally speaking I'm not always the world's most confident person; I have had to work on it, and I also have to pretend to be more confident than I am at times. I'm a pretty introverted person, and also pretty shy, though if you've only encountered me as a referee then I hope you wouldn't have noticed!
There is a difference between internal and external confidence for a referee, and both are important. Internal confidence is the confidence you have in yourself to do the job, and to an extent the confidence you show to your referee team when you make a decision on a call, before telling the pitch. Though it is less important if your referee team see your uncertainty, confidence has a knock-on effect - if they see you purposefully make a call, they are more likely to be inspired to show that confidence when calling things themselves. It is also easier to appear confident to the whole pitch if your body language in referee meetings is portraying confidence too - and body language reflects how you are feeling internally.
Projecting your confidence to the rest of the pitch is a skill in and of itself, and a referee's ability to do that determines how confident they appear to teams on the pitch. Controlling a pitch is a lot about how well you can project your confidence - if players can sense that you are sure of yourself, they are much less likely to seriously challenge your authority. Evidently there will always be exceptions that you will have to deal with, but generally being self-assured will help massively with backchat. The most important things, in my mind, for projecting confidence are posture and tone of voice. Standing tall (no short jokes here please, you know what I mean! (and if you don't, then it's back straight, shoulders back, making the most of your height)), speaking calmly but firmly, these are the keys to interacting with players.
Though generally I will stand by the statement that a referee can never be too loud on a quidditch pitch, it is probably best not to shout in someone's ear when you are speaking directly to them. Just talking louder isn't going to portray confidence - as stated before, tone is much more important than volume when dealing with individuals. Often (especially so if you are a woman) volume may show vulnerability over confidence in those situations. Obviously if someone is repeatedly going off at you then it may become appropriate to speak over them and use that to let the whole pitch know you aren't taking it, before sending the perpetrator off of course. But generally people will respond to a firm tone that does not need to be loud.
Equally, harshness on your calls isn't a good way to show confidence and could backfire. All referees have their own style, and some are tougher than others (I certainly sit further from the 'lax' end of the scale than most), however refereeing is about having confidence in making a NHNF call or a back to hoops call just as much as it is about giving a card where necessary. Evidently cards do need to be given when fouls deserve it, but don't feel that you have to give cards to stamp your authority on a pitch - it may be a detriment.
Being overconfident can be as much of a problem to a referee as not being confident enough, albeit a much rarer one. A head referee that is too full of themselves and their abilities will undoubtedly fail to ever improve if they cannot acknowledge their mistakes, flaws, and general areas for improvement. It also can lead to confrontations with other referees on the pitch, and tension here can be picked up by players which makes them less confident in the abilities of the referee team. Overconfidence (and relatedly, taking yourself too seriously) can also decrease how personable you come across as on pitch, and in my opinion it is important that players feel that any time they speak with you it is a dialogue rather than a confrontation, and an overconfident referee may come across as that.
Most of this has been about head referees, however it is equally important for all of the other referees on pitch to be confident. Assistant referees need to be confident in their knowledge of the rules enough to make delayed penalty calls, and also to follow through with those calls in sending players back to hoops - maybe even having to repeat the call a few times when people don't listen! It also really helps in referee meetings if an assistant referee is confident, because that often correlates with an increase in clarity of their description of events which in turn leads to a much faster decision being made. Lack of confidence in assistant referees in their own two eyes is a pet peeve of mine, because in the moment there is nothing I can do and I feel everyone would be happier if confidence was there or faked.
Snitch referees are probably the least confident qualified referee on the pitch, on average, and this can be a real issue. I am definitely not the most qualified person to give advice to snitch referees in general, because it is not my strong suit, but I believe an increase in confidence would really help. I often hear that not enough delayed penalties and back to hoops fouls are given for seeker interactions, which may be because they do not have enough confidence to make those calls, or because players don't listen. Indeed, there is little precedent for giving cards to seekers outside of OUQC. Goal referees, scorekeepers and timekeepers also need to be confident in their jobs, if only to reduce the pressure on the head referee!
I have one final point to make. It is perfectly fine to go on pitch and just pretend to be confident, and actually have a million and one butterflies in your stomach. There is nothing wrong with emulating a referee or person or character who has more confidence than you to get that effect on pitch. I started that way, and to an extent I do still pretend, though I have a lot more internal confidence as a referee than when I started. Nerves will always need to be covered - in finals, for instance - and certainly I think every other referee if not everyone else will understand. But why should they know? You don't even have to admit to lacking confidence if you don't want to. And to those who want to help in the improvement of referees across the country? Encouragement and praise went a long way to helping me gain confidence and thus improve. Share that around, it's something I certainly try to do.
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