Quick answer
What a leader listens to trains everyone under him. The verse traces corruption downward from a single habit of attention.
Read both lines
The mechanism is elegant and grim. The ruler does not order anyone to lie; he simply מַקְשִׁיב, pays attention, to falsehood, and the word describes attentive listening rather than gullibility. His staff learn what gets rewarded, and the verse says all of them, which is the claim worth pausing on. Not the weak ones or the ambitious ones. All.
The book has watched this from the other direction at 25:23, where a backbiting tongue produces angry faces, and at 26:20, where the fire dies without fuel. This verse identifies the one listener whose appetite determines what everyone else supplies. What it does not offer is a remedy, and the silence is honest. The servants in the verse are not described as wicked men who found a post; they are described as having become wicked, which puts the responsibility where the attention was.
Related: Proverbs 25:23 · Proverbs 26:20 · Proverbs 20:8 · Proverbs 16:10
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.