Success Quote by Thomas J. Leonard

“Bigness is better” is the kind of corporate koan that pretends to be common sense while quietly smuggling in an entire worldview. Coming from a businessman like Thomas J. Leonard, it isn’t just a preference for scale; it’s a management ideology in four words. The line flatters ambition and simplifies strategy: if you’re unsure what to do, make it bigger. Bigger market share. Bigger teams. Bigger budgets. Bigger growth targets. It turns expansion into a moral good rather than a tactic with tradeoffs.

The subtext is defensive as much as it is aspirational. “Bigness” functions like a shield: scale promises bargaining power, brand gravity, and insulation from competitors. It also implies that smallness is a liability, even a failure of nerve. That’s a useful message inside organizations where doubt is costly and where leaders need a rallying cry that sounds decisive without being falsifiable.

Context matters: Leonard’s career lands in the late-20th-century era when conglomeration, global supply chains, and shareholder-value thinking made size feel like destiny. In that climate, “better” often meant more efficient, more investable, more “serious.” The quote fits a business culture that prizes dominance and optionality, where success is measured by footprint, not necessarily by resilience or purpose.

What makes it work is its blunt, ad-ready certainty. It’s not an argument; it’s a permission slip. If bigness is better, then growth isn’t just a choice - it’s the responsible thing to do.