Servant-Leader

Servant-leader is one of the more annoying oxymorons I keep running into.
What leaders usually mean when they use this descriptor is virtuous enough. The benevolent, other-oriented stewardship of the options power provides.
Now by "servant" though, I can't resist pointing out, leaders don't mean powerless. Though the primary and almost universal characteristic of servanthood is the absence of power. (That the efforts of servants benefit others is a characteristic of their powerlessness, not their benevolence.)
How is one with power ever really like one without power? I still haven't found anyone in a position of power who believes the route to servant-leadership is the relinquishment of power.
Let's float a new term: powerless-leader. They certainly exist, though history seldom records their contributions. But we cannot easily conceive leadership, effectiveness or impact resulting without the power to control, impose or direct. It would up-end where we look for leadership and transform how change breaks through (and, more significantly, why paralysis endures).
Yes, I'm playing with words. But only to wonder about the words some use to give themselves permission to hold onto what they cannot fathom being without in a world where, for all the leadership literature, so little changes and so much is at stake with things changing.