Do you believe counseling soldiers has better results than making them do PT?

No, never.

Depends on the soldier. As a junior enlisted put in a leadership position, I had soldiers I could counsel everyday and not see a long term result. Those were the soldiers that learned they did something wrong by shoveling gravel from one pile to another. I also had significantly smarter soldiers where useless PT tasks just showed toxic leadership and created disillusioned morale, and thus lower retention. I always believed the most important feature of a leader is knowing your soldiers and what works for them.

No matter how you try to mentor a soldier if they decide that they've had enough and want to quit there's nothing you can do then your commander takes over and decides to retain them and basically throws you under a bus as a leader. On the reserve side is somewhat different retention rules than regular Army.

Depends on what results you're after.

Can ya yell at 'em while they sweat?