The Hebrew of the first line can be read two ways, and both are defensible.
Quick answer
Loyal kindness is what makes a person worth having. The verse then says a poor honest man beats a liar, whatever the liar can offer.
Read both lines
The word behind "kindness" is chesed, footnoted in the NKJV as lovingkindness, and it is the covenant word for steady loyalty rather than for pleasant feeling. The second line supplies the comparison that makes the first concrete. Set a poor man beside a man whose word is worthless and the verse does not hesitate, which tells you what it thinks chesed is worth: more than capacity, more than resources, more than anything a liar could actually deliver. The chapter opened with nearly the same trade at verse 1, and by returning to it here it has spent twenty verses establishing that the comparison is not naive.
Why translations differ
The Hebrew of the first line is compressed to three words and permits two readings: what a person desires is loyalty, or what is desirable in a person is his loyalty. Translations split, and the NKJV's "what is desired in a man" leans toward the second. The difference is real but not large, since either way the verse locates a person's value in faithfulness, and the second line settles the direction regardless.
Related: Proverbs 19:1 · Proverbs 3:3 · Proverbs 20:6 · Proverbs 28:6
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.