Inside the
Candidate's Head

The Psychology of Running for Office
Lessons from Brazil’s Campaign Trenches

Alberto Lage & Iracema Rezende

Electoral campaigns are temporary organisations operating under extreme pressure. Originally published in Brazil as Cabeça de Candidato, this book reveals a universal truth for both politics and business: failure rarely comes from bad strategy or messaging. Collapse comes from inside the head. Through cases drawn from one of the world’s most volatile political environments, the book exposes what campaigns rarely admit: candidates are not rational actors, and pressure doesn’t just test strategy, it breaks it.

What happens in Brazil’s campaign trenches is not an exception. It is an amplified version of the same psychological forces at play in elections everywhere. While the examples are drawn from campaigns, the patterns are universal. The dynamics described in this book are strikingly similar to those found in corporate boardrooms, NGOs, and any organization facing high-stakes decisions under pressure.

• The Culture of Pressure: How low psychological safety and high power distance lead to strategic blindness.
• System Strain: Navigating the toxic dynamics, silos, and defensive behaviours that derail both campaigns and corporate teams.
• Beyond Strategy: Why ego, overconfidence, and the inability to hear uncomfortable truths are the real drivers of failure.