Angela Merkel and Graça Machel: The Comparative Heroine’s Journeys of Two Women Leaders Beyond WEIRD

This chapter uses a comparative psychobiographical approach within the research paradigm of hermeneutics to explore the heroine’s journeys of two extraor-dinary women: Angela Merkel and Graça Machel. The author explores the lives of these women through the theory of the heroine’s journey. Joseph Campbell was the first to describe the hero’s journey, originally taking the stance that a female person does not need a hero’s journey. But this claim has been refuted during the past decades. This psychobiography contributes to: (1) the expansion of comparative psychobiographies with WEIRD and non-WEIRD women, (2) filling the gender gap in psychobiographical literature exploring the lives of two women leaders in politics, (3) expanding the theories on heroine’s journeys, (4) expanding the transcultural understanding of women’s leadership through psychobiography, and (5) providing insights into the lives of woman role models while offering practical recommenda-tions for women in leadership across cultures.