This paper addresses the research question of what kind of leadership, processes, and work climate best support employee-driven/bottom-up innovation in SOF. It starts with the suggestion that the term, Special Operations Forces (SOF), needs to be intellectually unpacked and its diverse elements (of which Special Forces are just one part) disaggregated in order to elicit definitional clarity. From this conceptual starting point, it becomes immediately clear that Special Forces represent the ‘special’ component in the SOF designation. This research contends they are a new type of soldier (and a product of modern warfare) that is defined by differentness in relation to conventional forces and activities within a battlespace, working in traditionally restricted areas. David Stirling, one of the founders of the famed British Special Air Service (SAS), is highlighted as an exemplar of the sort of leadership that provoked rare operational level effects. The paper also suggests that unorthodox forces operating in a unique operational environment demand unusual personality types and atypical command/control processes encapsulated by the so-called ‘Chinese Parliament’ that emerged in the SAS.