The fifth line resolves the hexagram by changing what is followed. Legge's translation shows the ruler sincere in fostering all that is excellent, and pronounces good fortune. Every position below this one has been occupied with attachments to persons, the little boy, the man of experience, the adherents, the associates beyond the gate. Here the object of following is not a person at all but a quality, and the difficulty the earlier lines kept running into simply does not arise.
A strong stroke correctly holds this odd position, central in the upper trigram Dui, which makes it the only line in Following that is strong, central and correct together. The seat of rule in a hexagram about attachment is the one place where following could easily be replaced by being followed, and the text refuses that. What the ruler does here is foster, which is neither commanding nor submitting: excellence is sought out wherever it exists and supported, and the ruler's own position is not the measure of it.
Sincerity is doing specific work in the sentence and not merely praising the ruler's character. A ruler who supports what is excellent for the appearance of it selects what will be noticed; a sincere one selects what is actually good, including what will never be credited to him. That distinction is what the good fortune rests on, and it is the standard against which the fourth line's ambiguous following and the sixth line's binding attachment are both measured.