I'm having trouble with the following sentence:
1) Ali is a great manager. He is a born leader.
2) Ali is a great manager. He was a born leader.
I'd say that (1) is the right one since Ali is still alive.
Hope I'm right.
This is completely correct, as he's still alive, use is, in the simple present. For a person no longer living, use was, which is simple past. Here "born" is an adjective describing what kind of leader Ali is or was, an expansion of He is a leader. It has the same meaning and grammar as "natural leader".
However, as "born" is also a verb, you can also say He was born a leader, which is past perfect because the birth was in the past, an expansion of He was born. This is the same grammar as "He was born a prince."
