The invention relates to the technical field of medical instruments and discloses a flexible drive element, an end effector and a surgical operating instrument. The flexible drive element comprises a head portion, a tail portion and a plate stress bending portion, the plate stress bending portion between the head portion and the tail portion and comprises a plurality of metal filaments and a flexible seal sleeve, and the flexible seal sleeve covers the plurality of metal filaments which extend along the length direction of the flexible drive element. In the technical scheme, the plurality of metal filaments enable the stress bending portion to have certain rigidity and flexibility and can be relatively fixed by the flexible seal sleeve, and accordingly surface friction of the flexible drive element can be reduced, and rigidity of the flexible drive element can be further improved. The flexible drive element is capable of effectively transferring driving forces required by instruments and less prone to destructive permanent deformation during turning, triggering and retracting, and accordingly difficulty in operation of surgical operating instruments is greatly lowered for surgeons, and simplicity and convenience in a machining process are achieved due to reduction of a welding procedure.