Neither the statement nor the behavior would be ideal.
“You will never speak to me that way again,” would probably be one of the worst things you could say to me if you were trying to end a conflict. Talking to me like I’m your five year old kid is pretty much guaranteed to piss me off, and I’m actually a very hard person to provoke.
It’s an authoritarian statement, implying that the other person is an inferior. Whether or not this is a true reflection of the positions of the people involved, if someone is already being confrontational it’s usually not a good idea to try to talk down to that person because it could inflame the situation.
Waiting to respond until the person has left the site of the initial confrontation is a very bad idea. It makes you look indecisive and unassertive. It also unnecessarily prolongs the conflict. Prolonging the conflict, no matter what the other person did previously, is usually considered a very bad thing. By way of analogy, chasing an attacker out into the front yard and shooting him is murder. Shooting him when he’s advancing on you is self defense.
If you can’t respond immediately, before the other person leaves, it would be better not to respond at all and instead report the incident to your superior. Let management deal with it.
I have worked, and supervised, successfully in both rough (junk yard) and exceedingly prissy (Japanese-owned and managed bank) environments, and I have never been hit or had my reaction disapproved of by upper managment. I’m not treated as the office time-bomb. I get along well with my peers. I’m (to quote a former employer now known as President Jackass) “a majorly competent sweetheart, if y’all don’t act like total * dipshits*.”
I am a small, not unattractive, woman. “You may not speak to me that way” has been effective on the sleaziest scooter-trash, drunk CEOs, and arrogant arab investors. It tells the jackass, loud and clear, that they have crossed the bounds of acceptable professional behaviour. I’ve never had to say that to a fellow peon.
The drunk CEO had to have a more detailed explanation – as in “You act like a child, I’m going to treat you like a child. Now get your ass back to your office and sober up before the entire company realizes you’re acting like an idiot.” He did not out of his way to avoid me after that incident, nor did he oppose my promotions.
Those of you who would be incensed at a woman telling you that you may not speak to her “like that,” what would you do? Slug her? Or realize that perhaps you’ve miscalculated, and need to reasses the situation, before you do something stupider?
As I recall (without going back to the OP), that’s actually what she said and he went off even worse on her, disproving the notion that a command with no teeth has any effect on stopping the bad behavior. Or did I mis-remember the sitch?
Once someone is grateful, it is hard to put a foot wrong.
(My guess is that he instigated your promotions, but only after he reckoned that you would leave the company otherwise - my guess is that he would have preferred to keep you around in the same position, but pay no object.)