Growth vs Fixed Mindset and Theory X vs Theory Y

I have been spending a lot of time recently thinking about Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y and Carol Dweck’s Fix Mindset and Growth Mindset. And I think there is something managers can learn from the mindsets and educators can learn from theory x and y.

In the 1950s Douglas McGregor devised his Theory X and Theory Y as a means to explain managerial behavior aimed at motivating employees. The Theories were attempts to explain managers’ philosophy about human nature that would impact or guide how they manage and how they motivate employees.

Theory X is a view of human nature that says that humans basically have little ambition, avoid responsibility, and are individual-goal oriented. In other words, are generally unintelligent, lazy, and only work for tangible rewards … money. This impacts how managers manage and motivate their employees. Thus managers use supervision, intimidation, and immediate punishment.

Theory Y is a view of human nature that says that humans basically are internally motivated, enjoy their job, and work to better themselves without a direct reward in return. In other words, are generally self-motivated, industrious, and work not only for external rewards but also for the satisfaction of accomplishment. This impacts how managers manager and motivate their employees. Thus managers use a pseudo-democratic environment that allows the employee to design, construct, and publish their work in a timely manner in accordance with their workload and projects.

More recently Carol Dweck devised her theory of the Fixed-Mindset and Growth Mind-Set as a means to explain educators’ approaches to educating students. The theory is an attempt to explain how educators view students and how that impacts or guides how educators teach and motivate students.

A Fix-Mindset is the belief that abilities are mostly innate and failure is due to a lack of necessary basic abilities. In other words, how smart a student is … intelligence … or how well a student learns … achievement … is a fixed quality and for the most part unchangeable. This leads the educator with such a belief to focus only on helping the student realize his or her full potential, how ever great or small that potential is.

A Growth Mindset is the belief that students can acquire any given ability provided they invest effort or study. In other words, how smart a student is … intelligence … or how well a students learns … achievement … is not a fixed quality and can be improved or changed depending upon how much effort the students puts in. This leads the educator with such a belief to focus not only on helping the student realize his or her full potential, but also to help stretch the student to attain an even higher potential.

So … how are these two theories … Theory X and Y and Fixed and Growth Mindset … from very different domains of study … management and education … related? I am thinking that a Theory X educator would be more likely to view his or her students as having a Fixed-Mindset and that a Theory Y educator would be more likely to view his or her students as having a Growth Mindset. And … a Fixed-Mindset manager would be more likely to be a Theory X manager and a Growth-Mindset manager would be more likely to be a Theory Y manager.