After years of toil, sweat and long hours, you’ve finally reached your goal, and are a top executive—perhaps the chief executive—in your company. Except now that you’re part of a select group, you see that those peers have one thing in common that you don’t: they’re all men.

You’ve mastered your current position and feel you’ve earned the opportunity to climb up the ladder to the next job. Proving yourself a vital employee is only one part of securing a promotion, as savvy bosses know.

Disagreements happen in every job, at every level. When a disagreement elevates to the point where you feel personally attacked, the instinct to punch back hard can kick in, but that isn’t constructive.