Successful diversity initiatives are rooted in business goals and growth for the bottom line, but you’ll only get so far if you stay stuck in the rigidity of compliance laws, said Cari M. Dominguez, former chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and co-author of “Leading With Your Heart: Diversity and Ganas for Inspired Inclusion.” She spoke to an audience of chief diversity officers and executives at DiversityInc’s two-day diversity event in Washington, D.C.

“You’ve got to have heart to go with your smarts,” Dominguez said. “It’s not just what we do, but why we do it; that’s the spirit of the law.”

To attend DiversityInc’s March 2–3 event, featuring New York Times Columnist Frank Rich, Ernst & Young Chairman and CEO Jim Turley and others, click here.

The heart and all the emotional connotations associated with it are pervasive in our culture, but when we talk about business and finance, the word and its sentiments vanish, replaced by words that typically describe a disturbed mind—anxiety, fear and stress.

Dominguez said that fear paralyzes a workforce and, as a result, its companies, but a sense of fairness mobilizes them. She pointed out the leadership styles of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller and Robert Wood Johnson as examples of that.

Effective leaders whose actions directly improve their businesses are also not afraid to go against the grain in their industry, Dominguez said. They envision and communicate success, design, deliver and drive strategy, and are unwavering in their actions and follow-through.

Finally, diversity efforts must be tied to health and success of a company. Dominguez talked about George Chavel, president and CEO of Sodexo, and George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente (Nos. 1 and 4 on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity^® list, respectively), tying diversity efforts to business plans and making diversity brand differentiators. Their approaches, she said, followed the spirit of the law, demonstrated that diversity yields good business outcomes, and attracted and retained better talent in a highly competitive environment.

“You can’t leave a legacy in this world unless you have your hearts and your minds in it,” Dominguez said.