Nine in the fourth place answers a querent who has acquired influence in a place where someone else holds the authority. People are coming to them rather than to the person formally responsible, and the reading treats this as a genuine hazard rather than a compliment. The line's most useful move is its insistence that being in the right will not protect them, since the difficulty is structural and not a matter of whether their conduct has been correct.
The remedy given is practical and can be applied directly. Make the purpose of the influence explicit, to the person in authority above all, and conduct it where it can be seen. A querent in this position is often tempted to say nothing, on the reasonable ground that they have done nothing wrong and that raising it would create the very suspicion they want to avoid. The line advises the opposite, because an unexplained following is read by others, and what they read into it will not be generous.
There is a second implication worth drawing out in a reading. Adherents who have attached themselves to a person rather than to the work are the specific risk, so the counsel includes redirecting them: crediting the shared aim, routing decisions through the proper seat, declining the role of alternative leader when it is offered. Handled that way the line ends in no blame at all, but the text is clear that this outcome has to be worked for.