The 1938 German scout cruiser as an oceanic destroyer

Was the German 1938 scout cruiser more like a destroyer leader or a true scout cruiser?

Neither exactly; its capital-ship escort role made it essentially a very large ocean-going destroyer.

The German 1938 scout-cruiser proposal was not a destroyer leader in the normal sense. Its defining requirement was enough range and endurance to accompany German capital ships into the ocean. In functional terms, that makes it an unusually large ocean-going destroyer despite the scout-cruiser label.